Wisdom from advertising greats…

From ~ Joseph Sugarman, in Triggers, 1999
One of the most satisfying things my customers used to tell me about my advertising was that it was totally disarming. They appreciated my raising problems with products that nobody else would consider raising and then resolving them in a completely satisfying way that transformed the problem into a major benefit. But be careful. The objections should be serious concerns that your prospects typically will raise.

From ~ Eugene Schwartz, in Breakthrough Advertising, 2004
In mathematics, one plus one always equals two. In emotional writing, one plus one can often equal ten. In other words, two emotional images – joined together in the right way – can often have ten times the impact that either has by itself. For example, in the classic Avis campaign, the main theme was, “We try harder.” Good by itself but nowhere near as powerful as it became when it was reinforced by the reason why Avis tried harder – “We’re number two.” One can even define one type of creativity as the ability to combine separate images into a new unity that is much more powerful than the mere logical sum of its parts.

From ~ Frank Bettger, in How I Raised Myself From Failure To Success In Selling, 1947
Before that I had largely thought of selling as just a way of making a living. I had dreaded to go in to see people, for fear I was making a nuisance of myself. But now I was inspired! I resolved right then to dedicate the rest of my selling career to this principle: Finding out what people want, and helping them get it.

From ~ Jack E Rossin, in The Pawnshop Chronicles, 2003
Make your marketing efforts less sales-y and more informative. Give customers an excuse to spend time with your pitch by producing work that is interesting and entertaining. Build a relationship with your customers the same way you do with your friends – be yourself and be interested in their welfare. Selling is about communicating, not shouting. Give useful information, entertain and answer questions. Avoid the pressure to sell hard.

From ~ Don Schultz, in Integrated Marketing Communications, 1993
Social media creates communities, not markets.
(Emphasis on the word “communities.” There can be markets in communities. But not always.)

From ~ David Ogilvy, in Ogilvy On Advertising, 1983
The first advertisement I ever produced showed a naked woman. It was a mistake because it was irrelevant to the product – a cooking stove. Some copywriters assume that everyone finds the product as boring as they do, so they try to inveigle the reader into their ads with pictures of babies, beagles and bosoms. Also a mistake. The test is relevance. To show bosoms in a detergent advertisement would not sell the detergent. Stay away from irrelevant sex.

From ~ Roy H. Williams, in Magical Worlds of the Wizard of Ads, 2001
People say the word “branding” as though it’s a mysterious and complex proposition. But when you peel off all the layers of hype, it comes down to this: If advertising is getting your name out, then branding is simply attaching something to your name. A brand is the sum total of all the mental associations – good and bad – that are triggered by a name. What does your company’s name stand for in the mind of the public? What mental associations are triggered?

From ~ Bill Bernbach, Doyle Dane & Bernbach
The most powerful element in advertising is the truth.

From ~ Allan Roth, in The 10 Most Important Things I Tell Clients, 2023
(An interesting advertising insight from Wealth Logic founder Allan Roth)
I tell clients that when they attend a free investing seminar, the quality of the food and booze is inversely related to the quality of the investment.

From ~ David Ogilvy, in The Unpublished David Ogilvy, 1986
Once, discussing a copywriter at another agency whom he admired in some respects, David Ogilvy said: “Listen to this – every day at precisely 5 o’clock that man gets up from his desk, puts on his hat and coat, and goes home. Think of the extraordinary self-discipline that requires!“

From ~ Bill Bernbach, Doyle Dane & Bernbach
There are a lot of great technicians in advertising. And unfortunately, they talk the best game. They know all the rules … but there’s one little rub. They forget that advertising is persuasion and persuasion is not a science but an art. Advertising is the art of persuasion.

From ~ George Revson, Revlon
In our factories, we make lipstick. In our advertising, we sell hope.

From ~ Steve Jobs, Co-Founder, Apple
The most powerful person in the world is the storyteller. The storyteller sets the vision, values and agenda of an entire generation that is to come.

From ~ George Lois, Art Director
Because advertising and marketing is an art, the solution to each new problem or challenge should begin with a blank canvas and an open mind, not with the nervous borrowings of other people’s mediocrities. That’s precisely what ‘trends’ are – a search for something ‘safe’ – and why a reliance on them leads to oblivion.

From ~ Julian Lewis Watkins, in The 100 Greatest Advertisements, 1959 edition
Consider the copywriter’s problem. An alarm clock is a prosaic thing. It’s mechanical. It gets us up in the morning when we’d rather be asleep. Westclox had made Big Ben pleasant to look at, even pleasant to hear. Thanks to natural, readable and effective advertising, a warmth and personality was built up around Big Ben that made it a member of more American families than any other clock of its kind.

From ~ Jay Conrad Levinson, in Guerrilla Marketing, revised 1993
Perhaps the most profitable investment a retail business owner can make is in a red neon sign that says OPEN. Not a lot of creativity in the copy for those signs, to be sure. Nonetheless, they work.

From ~ James Webb Young, in A Technique For Producing Ideas, 1975
“Go out into the streets of Paris,” an older writer told Guy De Maupassant, “and pick out a cab driver. He will look to you very much like every other cab driver. But study him until you can describe him so that he is seen in your description to be different from every other cab driver in the world.” Thus, for example, I could cite the advertising for a well-known soap. At first there appeared to be nothing to say about it that had not been said for many soaps. But a study was made out of which came copy ideas for five years of advertising – ideas which multiplied the sales of this soap by 10 in that period. That is what is meant by gathering specific information.

From ~ David Ogilvy, in Ogilvy on Advertising, 1983
Most of the advertising techniques which worked when I wrote Confessions Of An Advertising Man still work today. Consumers still buy products whose advertising promises them value for money. All over the world. In saying this, I run the risk of being denounced by the idiots who hold that any advertising technique which has been in use for more than two years is – by definition – obsolete. I comfort myself with the reflection that I have sold more merchandise than all of them put together.

From ~ Lee Clow (long-time creator of advertising for Apple)
Shocking is easy. Shockingly brilliant, a bit more challenging.

From ~ Yakov Smirnoff
The ad in the paper said “Big Sale. Last Week.” Why advertise? I already missed it. They’re just rubbing it in.

From ~ Harry Lewis Bird, in This Fascinating Advertising Business, 1947
It is the business of advertising to fascinate people, in the literal sense of “to allure, especially by qualities that charm; to interest or captivate by an irresistible influence,” according to Webster. The better the ad, the more it allures and holds the attention – whether by qualities that charm or those that startle. Some ads do this better than others.

From ~ Jay Conrad Levinson, in Guerrilla Marketing, revised 1993
We had persuaded a large manufacturer to experiment with television advertising. This was in 1968, hardly the Dark Ages. After a 3-month test, sales went through the roof. We prepared a plan for the year-round use of television. When the client rejected the plan, we wanted to know why, since our test had been enormously successful. “Because frankly, gentlemen,” the client said, “I am not convinced that television is here to stay.”

From ~ Ted Nicholas, in How To Turn Words Into Money, 2004
A well-written newsletter is a potent marketing tool. I’m not talking about a boring, canned newsletter. You’re not going to help sales one iota with such publications. I’m talking about a newsletter that is filled with useful information, is written with passion and is fun to read. This type of newsletter will help you develop a loyal bond with your customers. It’s something to consider if it fits your operation.

From ~ Jonathan Salem Basin, in Branding Only Works on Cattle, 2008
Contrary to the optimism of most branding gurus … habit is one of the strongest, most intractable qualities of life. On the spectrum of intensity of conviction, habit is to the left of addiction. Routine is just to the left of that. In the ad world, branding is called engagement. In the sales world, it’s called a waste of money. Riding waves works better than creating them.

From ~ Henry Ford, circa 1920
Stopping advertising to save money is like stopping your watch to save time.

From ~ George Lois, in What’s The Big Idea?, 1991
Because advertising/marketing is an art, the solution to each new problem or challenge should begin with a blank canvas and an open mind, not with the nervous borrowings of other people’s mediocrities. That’s precisely what “trends” are – a search for something “safe” – and why a reliance on trends leads to oblivion.

From ~ Dick Wasserman, in That’s Our New Ad Campaign, 1988
Successful corporate advertising must possess some unusual twist, some element that comes as a surprise and makes the advertising seem novel. But most corporate advertising is conventional, generic, vague, flat, dull. The closer corporate advertising is to declarations of solemn corporate credos, the less successful it is likely to be.

From ~ Howard Luck Gossage, in The Book Of Gossage, 1995
The real fact of the matter is that nobody reads ads. People read what interests them, and sometimes it’s an ad.

From ~ Eugene Schwartz, in Breakthrough Advertising, 1966
Your headline has only one job – to stop your prospect and compel them to read the next sentence of your ad. Every additional sentence in your ad has exactly the same job. To attempt to do the same selling job in a headline of 10 words – instead of an ad of hundreds or a thousand – is to shoot dice with your client’s money. If that worked, you could buy only enough space to print your headline and use the rest of the budget for repeat insertions.

From ~ Claude C. Hopkins, in My Life In Advertising, 1927
The majority of advertising successes … strike a human cord in a human way. They seem to offer a wanted service. That is why so much “fine advertising” fails to bring results. People are wary of it. It indicates a lack of sincerity.

From ~ Roy H. Williams, in Magical Worlds of the Wizard of Ads, 2001
In my first advertising job, I learned that most business owners see advertising as a giant gumball machine. “You puts in your money, you cranks the handle and out comes the result.” So I offered these business owners what they wanted – an instant miracle. My advertisers instantly became morphine addicts and I was their pusher. But there is a law of the Universe that says, “Anything that works quickly will work less and less well the longer you keep doing it.” So my magic would always fade. Even when I warned them that my “talk-loud-and-draw a crowd” strategy was doing long-term damage to their business, they really didn’t care. Addicts never do.

From ~ Leo Burnett, quoted online at Skyword.com in 2021
Don’t tell me how good you make it. Tell me how good it makes me when I use it.

From ~ James Webb Young, in A Technique For Producing Ideas, 1975
Every really good creative person in advertising whom I have ever known has always had two noticeable characteristics. First, there was no subject under the sun in which they could not easily get interested – from, say, Egyptian burial customs to Modern Art. Every facet of life had fascination. Second, they were extensive browsers in all sorts of fields of information. The more elements of the world which are stored away in the mind, the more the chances for striking combinations, or ideas.

From ~ Jack Rossin, in The Pawnshop Chronicles, 2003
Believing that your product or service will do better if only “the secret were out” is the stuff of marketing fairy tales. If it isn’t immediately obvious why your product deserves to be purchased instead of the competitor’s, then the only secret you have is your naiveté. Without exception, when someone says their product is the “best-kept secret,” it means they have a product with no discernible differences and a brand with no reason to buy. The secret’s out.

From ~ Geoff Ayling, in Rapid Response Advertising, 1998
Rampant creativity has a lot to do with the consumer disenchantment with advertising. In fact, there are two distinctly different types of creativity in advertising. There is “creative creativity” and there is “strategic creativity.” The first tends to be self-indulgent and largely irrelevant, while the second is the kind of creativity that draws attention, gets down to business and influences buying decisions.

From ~ Joseph Sugarman, in Triggers, 1999
Sometimes changing a single word will increase response. John Caples, one of the legendary direct marketers, changed the word repair to the word fix and saw a 20% increase in response. That is what is so great about direct response marketing. You can actually test the effect of every major word you write.

From ~ David Ogilvy, in Confessions of an Advertising Man, 1963
What a miracle it is when an advertiser manages to sustain a coherent style in their advertising over a period of years! Think of all the forces that work to change it. The advertising managers come and go. The copywriters come and go. Even the agencies come and go. It takes uncommon guts to stick to one style in the face of all the pressures to “come up with something new” every six months. It is tragically easy to be stampeded into change.

From ~ T. Scott Gross, in Positively Outrageous Service, 1991
If you dined at Phil Romano’s Macaroni’s restaurant on a Monday or Tuesday night and happened to get lucky, you – and every other customer in the joint – received a letter instead of a bill. It said that once a month and unannounced, everyone would eat free. Almost as an aside, the diners were asked to “tell your friends about Macaroni’s.” Eating free is definitely unexpected! By pulling this stunt at random, Romano wowed the customer and packed the house on nights when other restaurants struggle.

From ~ Ries & Trout, in Positioning – The Battle For Your Mind, 1981
Companies are lured to initials like moths to a candle. Top executives have seen their company’s initials on internal memos for so long that they just naturally assume that everybody knows good old MBPXL. The success of the IBMs of this world seem to be proof that initials are effective. But a company must be extremely well-known before it can use initials successfully.

From ~ John Graham, in Magnet Marketing, 1991
Of all the self-promotion tools, few are as potentially effective – and often misused – as newsletters. Many companies view a newsletter as nothing more than an advertising supplement. And they wonder why customers and prospects don’t do cartwheels when the newsletter arrives. These are the same people who say, “Newsletters don’t work.” In reality, a newsletter is a special communications vehicle that allows you to talk to customers on a consistent basis in ways you can’t achieve through advertising, brochures, direct mail, cold calls or office visits. What you’re really doing with a well-designed newsletter is revealing your competence – which is what customers are looking for in a supplier. A good newsletter lets you be perceived as both helpful and knowledgeable.

From ~ Ted Nicholas, in Turn Words Into Money, 2004
Huge marketing success is often the search for a blinding flash of the obvious. One example: A key to huge sales success is not price. It’s value. But you don’t just get value accepted. That’s why your sales copy is so important. Many of my friends assume their clients know everything about their business. The reality? Your copy must educate your customers. Sometimes the best sales coups come from doing something that should have been obvious but wasn’t until it became obvious.

From ~ Roy H. Williams, in Magical Worlds of the Wizard of Ads, 2001
Successful branding depends on your ability to speak to the customer in the language of the customer about what matters to the customer. The goal of branding is simply to be the name that customers think of immediately whenever they need what you sell. Branding is about the message. It actually matters what you say in your advertising.

From ~ Bob Hoffman, in The Ad Contrarian, 2020
First of all, I don’t like the word “branding.” It’s like so many words in the dreadful lexicon of marketing – far too open to interpretation to mean anything specific. And in the long run, no amount of brilliant advertising and its associated brand value can overcome a substandard, ugly product that tastes bad, is hard to find and is unaffordable or unprofitable. Creating a desirable brand is not nearly a guarantee of business success. You gotta’ get a whole lot of other things right first.

From ~ Steven Van Yoder, in Get Slightly Famous, 2nd edition, 2007
Getting slightly famous is the exact opposite of mass marketing. It’s not about being all things to all people, but by being a mini-celebrity to the right people. It’s about targeting your market and developing a reputation as a great resource – trustworthy, knowledgeable and close at hand. You will attract more customers and clients, including those you want most.

From ~ John Caples, in Tested Advertising Methods, 4th edition, 1974
One more word about enthusiastic copy. Everybody knows that you can tame a wild horse and make the animal useful. But it is impossible to put life into a dead horse. The same is true of advertising copy. An advertisement that has been pounded out in the white heat of enthusiasm can be tamed and made effective. But it is impossible to put life into dead copy.

From ~ Theodore Levitt, in The Marketing Imagination, 1983
The most important thing to know about intangible products is that only when the customer doesn’t get what they bargained for do they become aware of what they bargained for. And that’s dangerous, because the customer will be aware only of dissatisfaction – not of success or satisfaction. That makes the customer terribly susceptible to the blandishments of competitive sellers. The customer needs to be made so regularly and persuasively aware of what they have been getting all along that occasional failures fade in relative importance.

From ~ Ray Welch, in Copywriter, 2002
Most marketing people think in ad-speak and talk in jargon. Instead of, “Stop by your Ford dealer,” they prefer “Visit your local participating authorized Ford dealer today.” On the grounds that “local” means “convenient,” right? And it’s only “participating” Ford dealers who are paying for this ad, right? And we wouldn’t want a consumer falling for one of those unauthorized dealers, the ones selling counterfeit Fords, would we? And of course we have to say “today” – otherwise one might wait until tomorrow or some other damn day, right? If you majored in Marketing instead of English, you’d know that.

From ~ Eugene Schwartz, in Breakthrough Advertising, 2004
Assume – as your constant assumption – that people are wonderful. You might read Dale Carnegie’s How To Win Friends And Influence People again. That book is one of the greatest books ever written. And everybody should read it every two or three years. The assumption is that everybody you’re writing to is a good soul. As my father used to say, the salt of the earth. They really want to be nice, honest and successful. They want to be happy. And they want to have friends. Then you have to say to yourself, “What makes (this product or service) reach these people?”

From ~ Jay Conrad Levinson, in Guerrilla Marketing, 1993
Unless it is necessary for you to look important by running large, expensive newspaper or magazine ads, you can attract business just as well by running smaller, inexpensive but consistently-run newspaper or magazine ads. You may not look as important as the purchasers of full-page ads, but you’ll end up making more money. Don’t forget – consistency is one of the most important factors in marketing. Largeness does not produce the consumer confidence that comes with consistency – a truth than can save you impressive sums.

From ~ Alastair Crompton, in The Craft of Copywriting, 1979
Decide whether your product has anything to say. If it has, say it. If it hasn’t, don’t waste fruitless hours trying to dig out some obscure fact that you hope will give you a campaign. Use showmanship. Look well outside the product itself to the people, the times, the places and the ways the product is used. Above all, be interesting.

From ~ Ted Nicholas, in Turn Words Into Money, 2004
Ads which ran 30-50 years ago are generally far better than most of what you see today. Study old advertising. You’ll get great ideas to use in your marketing because human emotions never change.

From ~ Leo Burnett in 100 Leos, published posthumously by his colleagues in 1995
Our real purpose is that of improving the sales effectiveness and reputation of our clients through ideas.

From ~ Alec Benn in The 27 Most Common Mistakes In Advertising, 1978
Common Mistake #21: Failing to capitalize on the inherent nature of the product, service or company. Services like banking, for example, are intangible. Tangible or intangible makes a difference in the kinds of words that are most effective. If intangible, the advertising is usually more effective when the words are concrete and the sentences are easy to follow. The task, after all, is to make the abstract perceptible.

From ~ Rosser Reeves of Ted Bates & Co., in Conversations with Masters of the Craft, 1965
If my advertisement gets them to act and your advertisement doesn’t get them to act, then I’ll debate with you later whether you find it pleasurable or unpleasurable. Now, we’re not in favor of commercials that are in bad taste or terribly ugly commercials. There’s nothing particularly beautiful in a TV screen with two hands stuck in the face of the viewer and you say, “Which hand has the M&M’s in it?” That certainly isn’t aesthetic. But M&M has had to build a new factory to supply the demand.

From ~ B.J. Mendelson, in Social Media Is Bullbleep, 2012
Using big companies is a tactic that everyone backing the myth of social media employs, despite evidence showing that not only does what works for the large corporations not work for you, but there are many instances where this doesn’t even work for them either. In fact, a lot of large companies simply aren’t looking at “social media” as a revenue generator, but as a loss leader. Running a “social media” campaign may be a financial hit giant corporations can take, but it’d be a pretty significant financial hit that the rest of us can’t survive.

From ~ Ries & Trout, in Positioning – The Battle For Your Mind, 1981
“For the millions who should not take aspirin … if your stomach is easily upset … or if you have an ulcer … or you suffer from asthma, allergies or iron-deficiency anemia, it would make good sense to check with your doctor before you take aspirin because aspirin can irritate the stomach lining, triggering asthmatic or allergic reactions, cause small amounts of hidden gastrointestinal bleeding. Fortunately, there is Tylenol.” More than sixty words of copy before any mention of the advertiser’s product. Sales of Tylenol took off. Today Tylenol is the #1 brand of analgesic. Ahead of Anacin, Bayer, Bufferin and Excedrin. A simple but effective repositioning strategy did the job. Against an institution like aspirin. Amazing.

From ~ Ted Nicholas, in Turn Words Into Money, 2004
You can take comfort in certain direct marketing constants that will never change. The basic wants and needs of people have always been the same. And, they will stay the same. The two best books on direct marketing I ever read are Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins and My First Hundred Million by E-Haldeman-Julius. The first was written in 1927, the second in 1928. The principles in these books still hold today. These principles will not change 76 years from now! Or 1000 years from now!

From ~ Bill Bernbach, in Conversations with Masters of the Craft, 1965
The most important element in the success of ad writing is the product itself. And I can’t say that often enough. Or emphasize it enough. So we never kid ourselves about the magic of advertising. The magic is in the product. And I want to add further that we don’t care who makes an ad better. If a client says to use something we never thought of and it makes a better ad, we more than welcome it. We’re not arbitrary, at all. We just want the greatest possible ad. Because in the long run, selling – that’s what counts.

From ~ George Gribbin of Young & Rubicam, in Copywriting: Conversations with Masters of the Craft, 1965
Take that phrase, “like,” instead of “as.” “As” may be grammatically correct. But many people mis-use the word, so “like” is more familiar to their ears. Therefore, use it. There will be times when you will be better off and get more emphasis that way. Albert Conkey was a former English professor at the University of Michigan. When he answered the phone and somebody asked him, “Is that you, Al?” he said, “It’s me.” He felt “It’s I” was stilted. It would be stilted in advertising and it would be wrong in many cases to use it, grammatical as it may be.

From ~ Michael Corbett & Dave Stilli, in 33 Ruthless Rules of Local Advertising, 2000
Over the past 30 years, we have been media reps, worked with media reps, managed media reps and trained media reps. We’re telling you this so that you know we have some experience with what we are about to assert: Media salespeople are trained to sell their inventory, not your inventory. Media salespeople are not trained to understand the business of advertising – they understand the business of selling of advertising time and space. Once you absolutely understand that, you’ll be in a position to use the media more effectively.

From ~ Eugene M. Schwartz, in Breakthrough Advertising, 2004
This is the core of advertising – its fundamental function. To take unformulated desire, and translate it into one vivid scene of fulfillment after another. To make sure that your prospect realizes everything that he is getting, everything that he is now leaving behind him, everything that he may possibly be missing. A copywriter’s first qualifications are imagination and enthusiasm. Your job is to show your prospect in minute detail all the tomorrows that your product makes possible for him. The sharper you can draw your pictures, the more your prospect will demand your product and the less important your price will seem.

From ~ Jay Conrad Levinson, in Guerrilla Marketing, rev. 1993
People do not buy shampoo – people buy great-looking hair or clean or manageable hair. People do not buy cars – people buy speed, status, style, economy, performance and power. Mothers of young kids do not buy cereal – they buy nutrition. So find the major benefit of your offering and write it down. It should come directly from the inherently dramatic feature. And even if you have four or five benefits, stick with one or two. Three at most. Stated as believably as possible. Because there is a world of difference between honest and believability. You can be 100% honest (as you should be) and people still may not believe you. You must go beyond honesty. Begin with the inherent drama turned into a benefit and worded believably.

From ~ John Caples, in Tested Advertising Methods, 5th edition, 1997
Why is it that ‘self-interest’ headlines are best and ‘curiosity’ headlines only 3rd best? You can answer this question for yourself. Suppose you are looking through a newspaper. You see a headline that arouses your curiosity. You will read the ad if you have time. But suppose you see a headline that offers you something you want. You will make time to read that ad. The headline that makes a definite offer of something people want has a further advantage. It conveys its message to people who read only headlines. And as every advertising pro knows, there are scores of people who read only headlines for every person who reads both headlines and copy. (P.S. News headlines are 2nd best.)

From ~ B.J. Mendelson, in Social Media Is Bullbleep, 2012
Everyone wants to be accepted. That’s why sales tactics for ‘social media’ that involve making people feel left out if they don’t adopt the latest platform are so effective. That’s why so much credence is given to the Cyber Hipsters I’ve described. Even if what they say is patently false, there are a lot of people out there who don’t have answers about the Web, who see the Cyber Hipsters and so they just follow the leader. Don’t follow the leader. The Cyber Hipsters don’t know what they’re talking about either. Most of this stuff you see packaged and sold as expertise is guesswork. For more on that, you should read David Freeman’s Wrong: Why Experts Keep Failing Us and How to Know When Not To Trust Them.

From ~ Victor O. Schwab, in How To Write A Good Advertisement, 1962
No matter what form of action you ask your reader to take, make this action as simple and easy and specific as you can. Ask yourself: “What do I want people to do when they finish reading this?” Give the exact location. Give the phone number and what department or individual to call. Remove any obstacles which stand in front of action on the part of prospects, which confuse them, make them indecisive and lead to no action at all. Press for immediate action. Because delay is the enemy of a sale.

From ~ Herschell Gordon Lewis, in How To Make Your Advertising Twice As Effective At Half The Cost, 1986
Creating effective advertising is no more difficult than selling something to a skeptical stranger who has let you know he’s considering several of your competitors as well as you. Would you have a “muscle-girl” hold your product -or- show the skeptical stranger a picture of a violin-maker -or- make a silly joke -or- dare him to understand what your benefits are? Or would you specify the benefits of doing business with you? Keep your dignity and let your advertising keep its. Tell your prospects what they want to know, without puffery and without making nervous jokes. It’s the road to communications heaven.

From ~ Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson, in ReWork, 2010
Unless you’re a fortune-teller, long-term business planning is a fantasy. So why don’t we call plans what they really are – guesses. Start referring to your business plans as business guesses, your financial plans as financial guesses and your strategic plans as strategic guesses. Plans put blinders on you and that’s the problem – plans are inconsistent with improvisation. And you have to be able to improvise. Figure out the next most important thing to do and do that. Make decisions right before you do something, not far in advance.

From ~ Theodore Levitt, in Innovation in Marketing, 1962
The reason so many companies are not getting enough sales bang for their bucks is not because they’re not spending enough bucks, and not even necessarily because they’re spending them the wrong way. The reason is frequently that they’re not spending them in a consistent way. They are trying to build sales by saying too many different things in too many different ways. As the competition for the customer’s attention gets more fierce, it becomes an increasingly wasteful luxury to treat the various aspects of product, communications and marketing policies as somehow separate and discrete pigeonhole parts.

From ~ Bob Hoffman, in 101 Contrarian Ideas About Advertising, 2012
I have come to the conclusion that what consumers rely on mostly is their own experience. Can it be that the personal experience of enjoying a product is even more powerful than the triumphant voices of all the twittering ‘like-minded consumers, journalists and objective reviewers’? Can it be that we’re not all slaves to what others ‘like’? And that’s where copywriters come in. The job of a copywriter is to persuade us to experience a product. It’s a job that requires a good deal of artistry, finesse and tact – characteristics rarely encountered in the silly jabber of web zealots.

From ~ Jay Conrad Levinson, in Guerrilla Marketing, rev. 1993
Marketing and advertising should be considered conservative investments. They are not miracle workers. They are not magic formulas. They are not instant gratifiers. Don’t expect marketing to double your sales. Although that has happened, it is unusual. Marketing will contribute to slow but steady increases for you. If you expect more from marketing, chances are you’ll be disappointed. If you expect only that, chances are you’ll be gratified. And successful.

From ~ Alex F. Osborn, in Applied Imagination, 1953
The piling up of tentative ideas is probably the one indispensable part of any problem-solving project, whether it be in creating a new drug or in correcting the behavior of one’s child. Almost always we have to think up a number of unusable ideas in order to arrive at one that may work. In many a case, the mere breaking down of the problem has revealed the answer or has shown that the real problem is other than the one we had set out to attack.

From ~ John Caples, in How to Make Your Advertising Make Money, 1983
Headlines make ads work. The best headlines appeal to people’s self-interest or give news. Long headlines that say something outpull short headlines that say nothing. Every headline has one job – it must stop your prospects with a believable promise. If you can come up with a good headline, you are almost certain to have a good ad. And don’t be afraid of long copy. If your copy is interesting, people will read all the copy you can give them. If the ad is dull, short copy won’t save it.

From ~ Al Ries & Jack Trout, in Bottom-Up Marketing, 1989
Every marketing plan desperately needs a healthy dose of reality. Yet the temptation to go off into the wild blue yonder is sometimes overwhelming. The comments around the conference table are more likely to be blue sky rather than brown earth. “Everybody is drinking Perrier.” “Nobody smokes anymore.” “Domestic cars are dead.” You get the picture. Don’t do your thinking around the conference table. It’s too easy to be led astray by the fad of the week. Reality is not an exciting topic, which is one reason why business schools don’t teach reality.

From ~ Roy H. Williams in Secret Formulas of the Wizard of Ads, 1999
Long-range planning may be the goose that lays the golden eggs for big companies, but it can be the wild goose of the proverbial chase for small ones. The only advantage of smallness in business is the ability to respond quickly to the opportunities of a changing marketplace. You can get your goose cooked if you commit to an inflexible, long-range plan in a small, nimble company. Rarely have I seen a small business 5-year plan that had any value at the end of 18 months.

From ~ John O’Toole in The Trouble With Advertising, 1981
I do not like to destroy cherished illusions but I must state unequivocally that there is no such thing as subliminal advertising. I have never seen an example of it, nor have I ever heard it seriously discussed as a technique by advertising people. Salesmanship is persuasion involving rational and emotional tools that must be employed at a conscious level. Furthermore, it’s demeaning to assume that the human mind is so easily controlled that anyone can be made to act against their will or better judgement by commands they don’t realize are present.

From ~ Claude C. Hopkins in Scientific Advertising, 1923
Frivolity has no place in advertising. Nor has humor. This does not apply to amusement advertising, but it does to all other forms. Money represents life and work. It is highly respected. To most people spending in one direction means skimping in another. So money-spending usually has a serious purpose. People want something worth more to them than the same amount of money spent in other ways would buy. Nobody can cite a permanent success based on frivolity. People do not buy from clowns.

From ~ George Lois in What’s The Big Idea, 1991
When speaking of a client’s “marketing problem” – an obstacle that must be overcome or a competitive challenge that must be dealt with – many advertising people lapse into doubletalk. Marketing is a voodoo word that suggests complexity and even mystery. But if you’re thinking clearly, you should be able to distill a marketing problem – which precedes an advertising solution – into one simple sentence. If you can’t, you don’t understand your subject. If you can, that “problem” can become a thrilling opportunity for inventive work … and results wildly out of proportion to the client’s ad budget.

From ~ David Ogilvy in Confessions of an Advertising Man/Building Great Campaigns, 1963
What is a good advertisement? I belong to the school which holds that a good advertisement is one which sells without drawing attention to itself. It should rivet the reader’s attention on the product or service. Instead of saying, “What a clever advertisement,” the reader says, “I never knew that before. I must try this.”

From ~ Joseph Sugarman in Advertising Secrets of the Written Word, 1998
Copy should be long enough to cover the essentials but short enough to make it interesting. There is really no limit to how long copy should be if you get results. I am not trying to sell you on using long copy. I use short copy at times and sometimes very short indeed when the price points are low enough that short copy does the job. Copy should cause the reader to take the action you request. Do people read all that copy? Some do.

From ~ Bernice Fitz-Gibbon in Macy’s, Gimbels & Me, 1951
Why do I make such a point of the fact that little unimportant untruths in an ad hurt all advertising? Because when there is one slip or false quote, the whole thing collapses and becomes unbelievable. As when the little girl says, “Mommy is a genius. She buys me Yoo-hoo syrup.” If she stopped right there, I’d probably believe the stuff was delicious and might even buy a few bottles to worm my way into the affections of my grandniece. But when the little girl goes on to say, “Mommy buys me Yoo-hoo syrup – the chocolate energy drink that comes in no-deposit, no return bottles,” she has lost me forever.