quotes

"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?" [said Alice]
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
"I don't much care where," said Alice.
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat.

From “Alice in Wonderland” by Lewis Carroll

In the factory we make cosmetics; in the drugstore we sell hope. Charles Revson

Committees can criticize advertisements, but they should never be allowed to create them. David Ogilvy

Customers buy for their reasons, not yours. Orvel Ray Wilson

Don't confuse motion with action. Ernest Hemingway

I once used the word "obsolete" in a headline, only to discover that 43% of housewives had no idea what it meant. In another headline I used the word "ineffable," only to discover that I didn't know what it meant myself. David Ogilvy

If you think advertising doesn't work, consider the millions of Americans that now think yogurt tastes good. Joe L. Whitley

Define yourself clearly - even if you have to mutter. W.C. Fields

You must have mindshare before you can have marketshare. Christopher M. Knight

To have great poets, there must be great audiences too. Walt Whitman

Marketing is not an event, but a process . . . It has a beginning, a middle, but never an end, for it is a process. You improve it, perfect it, change it, even pause it. But you never stop it completely. Jay Conrad Levinson

If you make a product good enough, even though you live in the depths of the forest the public will make a path to your door, says the philosopher. But if you want the public in sufficient numbers, you would better construct a highway. William Randolph Hearst

If you're trying to persuade people to do something, or buy something, it seems to me you should use their language, the language in which they think. David Ogilvy

I have always believed that writing advertisements is the second most profitable form of writing. The first, of course, is ransom notes... Philip Dusenberry

You can say the right thing about a product and nobody will listen. You've got to say it in a way that people will feel in their gut. Because if they don't feel it, nothing will happen. William Bernbach

If you are writing about baloney, don't try to make it a Cornish hen, because that is the worst kind of baloney there is. Just make it darned good baloney. Leo Burnett

We read advertisements to discover and enlarge our desires. We are always ready - even eager - to discover, from the announcement of a new product, what we have all along wanted without really knowing it. Daniel Boorstin

Good advertising does not just circulate information. It penetrates the public mind with desires and belief. Leo Burnett