Supposing you've got an acute appendicitis. You've got to be operated on tonight. Would you like to have a surgeon who's read some books of anatomy and knows how to do that operation - or would you prefer to have a surgeon who refused to read all books about anatomy and relied on his own instinct?

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

I once found myself conspiring with a British Cabinet Minister as to how we might persuade Her Majesty's Treasury to cough up more money for the British Travel advertising in America. Said he, "Why does any American in his senses spend his vacation in the cold damp of an English summer when he could equally well bask under Italian skies? I can only suppose that your advertising is the answer." Damn right.

I do not regard advertising as entertainment or an art form, but as a medium of information.

Positioning should be decided before the advertising is created

Nobody should be allowed to create general advertising until he has served his apprenticeship in direct-response

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