Great Advertising Quotes

• Make it simple. Make it memorable. Make it inviting to look at. Make it fun to read.

  Leo Burnett

  Inspirational, Success, Fun

  41 Copy quote

• A good advertisement is one which sells the product without drawing attention to itself.

  David Ogilvy

  Business, Drawing, Attention

  David Ogilvy (1963). “Confessions of an advertising man”, Holiday House

  84 Copy quote

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• Never write an advertisement which you wouldn't want your family to read. You wouldn't tell lies to your own wife. Don't tell them to mine.

  David Ogilvy

  Business, Lying, Writing

  9 Copy quote

• On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.

  David Ogilvy

  Business, Average, People

  9 Copy quote

• The most reliable way to predict the future is to create it.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Positive, Being Happy, Uplifting

  552 Copy quote

• The best way to predict the future is to create it.

  Peter Drucker

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  322 Copy quote

• Kodak sells film, but they don't advertise film; they advertise memories.

  Theodore Levitt

  Photography, Memories, Film

  71 Copy quote

• Rules are what the artist breaks; the memorable never emerged from a formula.

  William Bernbach

  Memorable, Artist, Design

  18 Copy quote

• What really decides consumers to buy or not to buy is the content of your advertising, not its form.

  David Ogilvy

  Business, Insightful, Marketing

  18 Copy quote

• There are a lot of great technicians in advertising. And unfortunately they talk the best game. They know all the rules. They can tell you that people in an ad will get you greater readership. They can tell you that a sentence should be this short or that long. They can tell you that body copy should be broken up for easier reading. They can give you fact after fact after fact. They are the scientists of advertising. But there's one little rub. Advertising is fundamentally persuasion and persuasion happens to be not a science, but an art.

  William Bernbach

  Wise, Witty, Art

  Letter on May 15, 1947. "Letters of Note". Book by Shaun Usher. Volume 2: "An Eclectic Collection of Correspondence Deserving of a Wider Audience", p. 190, 2016.

  10 Copy quote

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• In the modern world of business, it is useless to be a creative, original thinker unless you can also sell what you create.

  David Ogilvy

  Inspirational, Business, Creativity

  David Ogilvy (1963). “Confessions of an advertising man”, Holiday House

  30 Copy quote

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• Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half.

  John Wanamaker

  Money, Business, Marketing

  "Confessions of an Advertising Man". Book by David Ogilvy, Chapter 3, 1963.

  25 Copy quote

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• The very first law in advertising is to avoid the concrete promise and cultivate the delightfully vague.

  Bill Cosby

  Funny, Humor, Law

  29 Copy quote

• The most powerful element in advertising is the truth.

  William Bernbach

  Powerful, Marketing, Elements

  13 Copy quote

• I am one who believes that one of the greatest dangers of advertising is not that of misleading people, but that of boring them to death.

  Leo Burnett

  Business, Believe, People

  Leo Burnett (1961). “Communications of an Advertising Man: Selections from the Speeches, Articles, Memoranda, and Miscellaneous Writings of Leo Burnett”

  21 Copy quote

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• The consumer isn't a moron; she is your wife.

  David Ogilvy

  Funny, Sarcastic, Witty

  Confessions of an Advertising Man (1963) ch. 5

  90 Copy quote

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• On the average, five times as many people read the headlines as read the body copy.

  David Ogilvy

  Average, People, Body

  9 Copy quote

• You must make the product interesting, not just make the ad different.

  Rosser Reeves

  Interesting, Marketing, Different

  51 Copy quote

• In advertising, not to be different is virtually suicidal.

  William Bernbach

  Suicide, Suicidal, Marketing

  25 Copy quote

• There is a great deal of advertising that is much better than the product. When that happens, all that the good advertising will do is put you out of business faster.

  Jerry Della Femina

  Humorous, Advertising Business, Faster

  Jerry Della Femina (2010). “From Those Wonderful Folks Who Gave You Pearl Harb: Front-Line Dispatches from the Advertising War”, p.147, Simon and Schuster

  9 Copy quote

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• Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.

  Mark Twain

  Wise, Witty, Kindness

  1889 A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, ch.22.

  21 Copy quote

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• Promise, large promise, is the soul of an advertisement.

  Samuel Johnson

  Wise, Witty, Business

  'The Idler' no. 40 (20 January 1759)

  9 Copy quote

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• 

  Curiosity about life in all of its aspects, I think, is still the secret of great creative people.

  Leo Burnett

  Creativity, Bad Ass, Thinking

  Leo Burnett (1961). “Communications of an Advertising Man: Selections from the Speeches, Articles, Memoranda, and Miscellaneous Writings of Leo Burnett”

  73 Copy quote

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• Advertising in the final analysis should be news. If it is not news it is worthless.

  Adolph Ochs

  Wise, Witty, Business

  50 Copy quote

• Nobody counts the number of ads you run; they just remember the impression you make.

  William Bernbach

  Running, Business, Numbers

  24 Copy quote