What you say in advertising is more important than how you say it.

Never write an advertisement which you wouldn't want your own family to read. You wouldn't tell lies to your own wife. Don't tell them to mine. Do as you would be done by. If you tell lies about a product, you will be found out - either by the Government, which will prosecute you, or by the consumer, who will punish you by not buying your product a second time. Good products can be sold by honest advertising. If you don't think the product is good, you have no business to be advertising it.

Why should a manufacturer bet his money, perhaps the future of his company, on your instinct?

If you have all the research, all the ground rules, all the directives, all the data - it doesn't mean the ad is written. Then you've got to close the door and write something - that is the moment of truth which we all try to postpone as long as possible.

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.

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.

I always said that mega-mergers were for megalomaniacs.

Any damn fool can put on a deal, but it takes genius, faith and perseverance to create a brand.

Good products can be sold by honest advertising. If you don't think the product is good, you have no business to be advertising it.

Advertising is a business of words, but advertising agencies are infested with men and women who cannot write. They cannot write advertisements, and they cannot write plans. They are helpless as deaf mutes on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera.

There are very few men of genius in advertising agencies. But we need all we can find. Almost without exception they are disagreeable. Don't destroy them. They lay golden eggs.

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.

The creative process requires more than reason. Most original thinking isn't even verbal. It requires 'a groping experimentation with ideas, governed by intuitive hunches and inspired by the unconscious.' The majority of business men are incapable of original thinking because they are unable to escape from the tyranny of reason. Their imaginations are blocked.

Few of the great creators have bland personalities. They are cantankerous egotists, the kind of men who are unwelcome in the modern corporation.

Our offices must always be headed by the kind of men who command respect. Not phonies, zeros or bastards.

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.

Many of the greatest creations of man have been inspired by the desire to make money...If Oxford undergraduates were paid for their work, I would have performed miracles of scholarship and become Regius Professor of Modern History.

The majority of business men are not capable of an original thought, simply because they cannot escape the tyranny of reason.

Hard work never killed a man. Men die of boredom, psychological conflict, and disease. They do not die of hard work.

Madison Avenue is full of masochists who unconsciously provoke rejection by their clients. I know brilliant men who have lost every account they have ever handled.

Lazy and superficial men and women do not produce superior work.

Senior men have no monopoly on great ideas. Nor do creative people. Some of the best ideas come from account executives, researchers and others. Encourage this, you need all the ideas you can get.

If you ever find a man who is better than you are - hire him. If necessary, pay him more than you pay yourself.

It takes a big idea to attract the attention of consumers and get them to buy your product. Unless your advertising contains a big idea, it will pass like a ship in the night. I doubt if more than one campaign in a hundred contains a big idea.

The creative process requires more than reason. Most original thinking isn't even verbal. It requires 'a groping experimentation with ideas, governed by intuitive hunches and inspired by the unconscious.' The majority of business men are incapable of original thinking because they are unable to escape from the tyranny of reason. Their imaginations are blocked.

Nobody ever arrives at a very big idea through a conscious, rational thought process. It comes from your unconscious.

Big ideas come from the unconscious. This is true in art, in science, and in advertising. But your unconscious has to be well informed, or your idea will be irrelevant. Stuff your conscious mind with information, then unhook your rational thought process. You can help this process by going for a long walk, or taking a hot bath, or drinking half a pint of claret. Suddenly, if the telephone line from your unconscious is open, a big idea wells up within you.

I once used the word OBSOLETE in a headline, only to discover that 43 per cent 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.

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

You will never win fame and fortune unless you invent big ideas.

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

Unless your campaign has a big idea, it will pass like a ship in the night.

Senior men have no monopoly on great ideas. Nor do creative people. Some of the best ideas come from account executives, researchers and others. Encourage this, you need all the ideas you can get.

The best idea is the simplest.

Big ideas are usually simple ideas.

Develop your eccentricities while you are young. That way, when you get old, people won't think you're going gaga.

The best ideas come as jokes. Make your thinking as funny as possible.

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.

The creative process requires more than reason. Most original thinking isn't even verbal. It requires 'a groping experimentation with ideas, governed by intuitive hunches and inspired by the unconscious.' The majority of business men are incapable of original thinking because they are unable to escape from the tyranny of reason. Their imaginations are blocked.

People who think well, write well

Give people a taste of Old Crow, and tell them it's Old Crow. Then give them another taste of Old Crow, but tell them it's Jack Daniel's. Ask them which they prefer. They'll think the two drinks are quite different. They are tasting images

Develop your eccentricities early, and no one will think you're going senile later in life

Consumers don't think how they feel. They don't say what they think and they don't do what they say.

The trouble with many copywriters in general agencies are that they don't really think in terms of selling. They have never written direct-response; they have never tasted blood

Good products can be sold by honest advertising. If you don't think the product is good, you have no business to be advertising it.

Good copy can't be written with tongue in cheek, written just for a living. You've got to believe in the product.

The advertisers who believe in the selling power of jingles have never had to sell anything.

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

Once upon a time I was riding on the top of a First Avenue bus, when I heard a mythical housewife say to another, "Molly, my dear, I would have bought that new brand of toilet soap if only they hadn't set the body copy in ten point Garamond." Don't you believe it. What really decides consumers to buy or not to buy is the content of your advertising, not its form.

H. L. Mencken once said that nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public. That is not true. I have come to believe that it pays to make all your layouts project a feeling of good taste, provided that you do it unobtrusively. An ugly layout suggests an ugly product. There are very few products which do not benefit from being given a first class ticket through life.