Most headlines are set too big to be legible in the magazines or newspaper. Never approve a layout until you have seen it pasted into the magazine or newspaper for which it was destined. If you pin up the layouts on a bulletin board and appraise them from fifteen feet, you will produce posters.
No sale, no commission. No commission, no eat. That made an impression on me.
It strikes me as bad manners for a magazine to accept one of my advertisements and then attack it editorially – like inviting a man to dinner then spitting in his eye.
Can advertising foist an inferior product on the consumer? Bitter experience has taught me that it cannot. On those rare occasions when I have advertised products which consumer tests have found inferior to other products in the same field, the results have been disastrous.
The more story-appeal there is in the picture or in the photograph, the more people would look at your ad.
If you have a truly big idea, the wrong technique won’t kill it. And if you don’t have a big idea, the right technique won’t help you.
Many people – and I think I am one of them – are more productive when they’ve had a little to drink. I find if I drink two or three brandies, I’m far better able to write.
Nobody should be allowed to create general advertising until he has served his apprenticeship in direct-response.
Political advertising ought to be stopped. It’s the only really dishonest kind of advertising that’s left. It’s totally dishonest.
My motto has always been: Only first class business and that in a first class way.
I have noticed that agencies which are full of fun and ferment seem to create the best advertising. If you are not happy in advertising, for goodness sake find a job in which you would be happy. For as far as I know, we pass this way only once.
I’d like to be remembered, as a copywriter who had some big ideas. That’s what the advertising business is all about. Big ideas.
The only marketers who know what the hell they’re doing are those who have worked in sales.
Try and inject into every commercial you make a touch of singularity; a bird that will hook on to the consumers mind.
I don’t believe in tricky advertising, I don’t believe in cute advertising, I don’t believe in comic advertising. The people who perpetrate that kind of advertising never had to sell anything in their lives.
Never stop testing, and your advertising will never stop improving. Testing was used in advertising decades ago. The internet has made testing so easy that every online marketer can use it to improve advertising results. Google content experiment is a free tool for you to do split testing.
It is flagrantly dishonest for an advertising agent to urge consumers to buy a product which he would not allow his own wife to buy.
It is important to admit your mistakes, and to do so before you are charged with them. Many clients are surrounded by buckpassers who make a fine art of blaming the agency for their own failures. I seize the earliest opportunity to assume the blame.
Study the methods of your competitors and do the exact opposite.
The best idea is the simplest.