Advertising Failure Quotes

I would love for Hillary's [Clinton] massive ad campaign to be pointless and worthless. I would love for it to bomb out.

No, sir, I'm not saying that charming, witty and warm copy won't sell. I'm just saying I've seen thousands of charming, witty campaigns that didn't sell.

There is no such thing as a permanent advertising success.

I got hit up for a tampon commercial and so I asked [JD and Jo] if they had anything. Jo sent that over and I was like, "I love this track. Oh my god. It's so upbeat. It's so positive. It would be so great for a tampon commercial." That commercial never came through, so then I just had it. I was like, "That would be great for a Hillary [Clinton] song." I think it's so funny that it could be a tampon commercial.

You know why Madison Avenue advertising has never done well in Harlem? We're the only ones who know what it means to be Brand X.

Most advertisers spend millions upon millions of dollars to buy commercial time during the Super Bowl, and millions in creating eye-popping ads, hoping to create catchy, unforgettable commercials. Unfortunately, most Super Bowl commercials end up being unmemorable. Costly mistakes for brands and creative flameouts for advertising firms.

The worst thing about Halloween is, of course, candy corn. It's unbelievable to me. Candy corn is the only candy in the history of America that's never been advertised. And there's a reason. All of the candy corn that was ever made was made in 1911. And so, since nobody eats that stuff, every year there's a ton of it left over.

I can't tell you how many home businesses are almost in bankruptcy court over a Yellow Pages ad only to find out that the Yellow Pages ad isn't where their market will look for them, and it cost more than they thought.

I went to Tokyo three years ago. It was a job, though. I did an ad campaign for IBM, so they flew me out there to take pictures of me. It was IBM Global. It went to Australia, France, London, all over the world. But I think the ad campaign was a failure, because of me.

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.

Viewers have a way of remembering the celebrity while forgetting the product. I did not know this when I paid Eleanor Roosevelt $35,000 to make a commercial for margarine. She reported that her mail was equally divided. "One half was sad because I had damaged my reputation. The other half was happy because I had damaged my reputation." Not one of my proudest memories.

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.

In the old days, advertisers ventured on their own opinions. The few guess right, the many wrong. Those were the time of advertising disaster