quotations about advertising
I do not read advertisements. I would spend all of my time wanting things.
FRANZ KAFKA
attributed, The Daily Book of Positive Quotations
Good advertising is advertising that gets the money.
JULIUS SCHNEIDER
attributed, The Advertising Age
Advertising is judged not by what it says, but by what the consumer thinks it says.
KENNETH ROMAN, JANE MAAS & MARTIN NISENHOLTZ
How to Advertise
Advertising, in fact, is the effort of business men to take charge of consumption as well as production. They are not content to supply a demand, as the text-books say; they educate the demand as well. In the end, advertising rests upon the fact that consumers are a fickle and superstitious mob, incapable of any real judgment as to what it wants or how it is to get what it thinks it would like. A bewildered child in a toy shop is nothing to the ultimate consumer in the world market of today. To say, then, that advertising is merely a way of calling attention to useful goods is a gorgeous piece of idealization. Advertising is in fact the weed that has grown up because the art of consumption is uncultivated.
WALTER LIPPMANN
Drift and Mastery
Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.
MARK TWAIN
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
You can tell the ideals of a nation by its advertisements.
NORMAN DOUGLAS
South Wind
Advertising is an expected part of everyday life, but it is also alien to it: the ever-expected but uninvited guest; on magazine pages, during TV programmes, and round each city corner.
IAIN MACRURY
Advertising
Advertising is a valuable factor because it is the cheapest way of selling goods, particularly if the goods are worthless.
SINCLAIR LEWIS
attributed, Selling the Dream
Advertising is the modern substitute for argument, its function is to make the worse appear the better article. A confused competition of all propagandas -- those insults to human nature -- is carried on by the most expert psychological methods -- for instance, by always repeating a lie.
GEORGE SANTAYANA
Atoms of Thought: An Anthology of Thoughts
That is the kind of ad I like, facts, facts, facts.
SAMUEL GOLDWYN
attributed, Goldwyn: A Biography of the Man Behind the Myth
We will never know if an advertisement or opinion poll has had a real influence on individual or collective wills, but we will never know either what would have happened if there had been no opinion poll or advertisement.
JEAN BAUDRILLARD
The Perfect Crime
I have discovered the most exciting, the most arduous literary form of all, the most difficult to master, the most pregnant in curious possibilities. I mean the advertisement. It is far easier to write ten passably effective sonnets, good enough to take in the not too inquiring critic, than one effective advertisement that will take in a few thousand of the uncritical buying public.
ALDOUS HUXLEY
On the Margin: Notes and Essays
Why do Jell-O and Coke pay Bill Cosby to sell their products? Why do politicians wrap themselves in the flag? Why is Miller brewed the American way? Why do we love baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, and Chevrolet? Why? Because these people and symbols are already powerful anchors in the culture, and the advertisers are simply transferring the feeling we have for these people or symbols to their products. They use them as ways to make us receptive to whatever it is they're selling.
ANTHONY ROBBINS
Unlimited Power: A Black Choice
Advertising is the fuel of enterprise.
GEORGE FRENCH
The Independent, Jan. 23, 1913
The ubiquity of advertising is, of course, just another effect of our uninhibited efforts to use all the media to get all sorts of information to everybody everywhere. Since the places to be filled are everywhere, the amount of advertising is not determined by the needs of advertising, but by the opportunities for advertising, which become unlimited.
DANIEL BOORSTIN
attributed, Media/Impact: An Introduction to Mass Media
No method of advertising is too expensive if it brings proper results.
S. ROLAND HALL
The Advertising Handbook
Too little advertising is like sowing too little seed. A farmer in planting corn puts a number of grains into each hill and is satisfied if one good healthy stalk comes from each planting. It's the constant advertiser that is bound to attract attention. It's the succession of bright, catchy advertisements that refuse to be ignored. That time must be allowed for the fruit to grow, ripen and be gathered is as true as that wheat cannot be reaped the day after it is sown.
BYRON W. ORR
The Clothier and Furnisher, Jan. 1890
The future of advertising and marketing services belongs as much to Maths Men (and women) as it does to Mad Men.
MARTIN SORRELL
attributed, "Will tech giants crush advertising agencies?", Economic Times, February 24, 2016
Great advertising is almost always risk-taking, if not occasionally irreverent.
PATRICK FARREY
attributed, "An Open Letter to the AAF President on the Ridiculousness of All-Male, All-White Juries", AdWeek, March 3, 2016
The base of advertising is the mob movement ... to make a mass of people move in a certain direction.
THOMAS E. DOCKRELL
Annual Convention of the Associated Advertising Clubs of America