“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.”

Every advertisement should be thought of as a contribution to the complex symbol which is the brand image.

Many manufacturers secretly question whether advertising really sells their product, but are vaguely afraid that their competitors might steal a march on them if they stopped.

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.

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

I notice increasing reluctance on the part of marketing executives to use judgment; they are coming to rely too much on research, and they use it as a drunkard uses a lamp post for support, rather than for illumination.

You now have to decide what ‘image’ you want for your brand. Image means personality. Products, like people, have personalities, and they can make or break them in the market place.

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

Like a midwife, I make my living bringing new babies into the world, except that mine are new advertising campaigns.

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.

Some manufacturers illustrate their advertisements with abstract paintings. I would only do this if I wished to conceal from the reader what I was advertising.

Advertising reflects the mores of society, but it does not influence them.

The secret of long life is double careers. One to about age sixty, then another for the next thirty years.

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

I did not feel ‘evil’ when I wrote advertisements for Puerto Rico. They helped attract industry and tourists to a country which had been living on the edge of starvation for 400 years.

Advertising people who ignore research are as dangerous as generals who ignore decodes of enemy signals.

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.

You truly are the average of the 5 people you surround yourself with.

Average people can’t stand with people who are chasing success.

Intelligent individuals learn from every thing and every one; average people, from their experiences. The stupid already have all the answers.

I am only an average man, but by George, I work harder at it than the average man.

If I’m going to be anything more than average, if anyone is going to remember me, then I need to go further, in art, in life, in everything!

All I knew is that I never wanted to be average.

I don’t have any extraordinary gifts. I’m just an average Joe who grew up very poor in rural Alabama.

Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.