Managing an advertising agency isn’t all beer and skittles. After fourteen years of it, I have come to the conclusion that the top man has one principle responsibility: to provide an atmosphere in which creative mavericks can do useful work.
Don’t hire a dog, then bark yourself.
Consumers still buy products whose advertising promises them value for money, beauty, nutrition, relief from suffering, social status and so on.
Make sure you have a vice president in charge of your revolution, to engender ferment among your more conventional colleagues.
A lot of today’s campaigns are based on optimum positioning but are totally ineffective – because they are dull, or badly constructed, or ineptly written. If nobody reads your advertisement or looks at your commercial, it doesn’t do you much good to have the right positioning.
Advertising is the place where the selfish interests of the manufacturer coincide with the interests of society.
Experience has taught me that advertisers get the best results when they pay their agency a flat fee. It is unrealistic to expect your agency to be impartial when its vested interest lies wholly in the direction of increasing your commissionable advertising.
Candor compels me to admit that I have no conclusive research to support my view that jingles are less persuasive than the spoken word. You’d run like hell if a salesman came to your door and began singing at you. Why do it in advertising?
I always said that mega-mergers were for megalomaniacs.
Hard work never killed a man. Men die of boredom, psychological conflict, and disease. They do not die of hard work.
I can’t stand callow amateurs who aren’t sufficiently interested in the craft of advertising to assume the posture of students.
I figure that my staff will be less reluctant to work overtime if I work longer hours than they do.
Sound an alarm! Advertising, not deals, builds brands.
Where people aren’t having any fun, they seldom produce good work.
The majority of business men are not capable of an original thought, simply because they cannot escape the tyranny of reason.
Why do eight out of ten new consumer products fail? Sometimes because they are too new. The first cold cereals were rejected by consumers. More often new products fail because they are not new enough.
When people aren’t having any fun, they seldom produce good work. Kill the grimness with laughter. Encourage exuberance. Get rid of sad dogs that spread gloom.
Be more ambitious. Don’t bunt. When you get a job to do a story or an ad, try and hit the ball out of the park every time.
The success of a meeting often depends on having the right documents – proofs, artwork, schedules, research charts, etc. – present at the start of the meeting. All too often we arrive like plumbers, leaving our tools behind.
It has taken more than a hundred scientists two years to find out how to make the product in question; I have been given thirty days to create its personality and plan its launching. If I do my job well, I shall contribute as much as the hundred scientists to the success of this product.
Some manufacturers illustrate their advertisements with abstract paintings. I would only do this if I wished to conceal from the reader what I was advertising.