Advertising Quality Quotes

During the Second War, the U.S.O. sent special issues of the principal American magazines to the Armed Forces, with the ads omitted. The men insisted on having the ads back again. Naturally. The ads are by far the best part of any magazine or newspaper. More pains and thought, more wit and art go into the making of an ad than into any prose feature of press or magazine. Ads are news. What is wrong with them is that they are always good news.

I've done a fair amount of commercials. I did a bunch of Champion spark plug ads and Levi's and Molson Beer. You wouldn't know it. But some of it's damn good.

I have learned that trying to guess what the boss or the client wants is the most debilitating of all influences in the creation of good advertising.

I have learned that you can't have good advertising without a good client, that you can't keep a good client without good advertising, and no client will ever buy better advertising than he understands or has an appetite for.

We have to move from making good advertising, to making advertising good.

As long as the attitude is to only show the sheet metal, then automobile advertising will continue to be wretched.

If you look at the heritage of the best advertising, you can make stuff that is great for both readers and advertisers. I don't think Don Draper would have loved banner ads.

A lot of advertising has gotten worse. I think it's kind of lost its nerve, to be honest with you. I feel like the advertising of the '60s, they were nervier. You know why? Because there was less at stake.

Much of the messy advertising you see on television today is the product of committees. Committees can criticize advertisements, but they should never be allowed to create them.

There's so much truly putrid advertising out there it's embarrassing. But not all advertising is bad. Some of it is really quite mediocre.

I watch TV more than I used to, and the commercials don't impress me. The standard of execution is very high, but the standard of ideas is appalling.

I'm sounding like an old fart talking about how bad advertising is today, but it's true. Advertising sucks. Guys like me and Bob Gage and certainly Bill Bernbach and two or three other guys, we exemplified and led the creative revolution.

I'm not embarrassed to be in advertising. But I'm embarrassed by a lot of advertising.