Leo Burnett Quotes

When you reach for the stars you may not quite get one, but you won't come up with a handful of mud either.

The most dangerous thing that can happen to us, I think, is to permit a feeling to develop that any client is a problem. I have always taken the attitude that no account is a 'problem account' but that all accounts have important problems attached to them - that you can waste more time and burn up more nervous energy by fighting a problem than by taking a positive attitude and solving it. It sure gives you a nice, warm glow when you do.

Creative ideas flourish best in a shop which preserves some spirit of fun. Nobody is in business for fun, but that does not mean there cannot be fun in business.

The greatest thing to be achieved in advertising, in my opinion, is believability, and nothing is more believable than the product itself.

The sole purpose of business is service. The sole purpose of advertising is explaining the service which business renders.

Whether or not the standard of living made possible by mass production and in turn by mass circulation, is supported by and filled with the work of us hucksters, I guess is something that only history can decide.

A good basic selling idea, involvement and relevancy, of course, are as important as ever, but in the advertising din of today, unless you make yourself noticed and believed, you ain't got nothin'.

I have learned to respect ideas, wherever they come from. Often they come from clients. Account executives often have big creative ideas, regardless of what some writers think.

Advertising is the ability to sense, interpret... to put the very heart throbs of a business into type, paper and ink.

Curiosity about life in all of its aspects, I think, is still the secret of great creative people.

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.

Advertising says to people, 'Here's what we've got. Here's what it will do for you. Here's how to get it.'

Good advertising should give the reader essential facts about the product or company advertised and should do so engagingly without trickery or hogwash.

If you don't get noticed, you don't have anything. You just have to be noticed, but the art is in getting noticed naturally, without screaming or without tricks.

Make it simple. Make it memorable. Make it inviting to look at. Make it fun to read.

I have learned that it is far easier to write a speech about good advertising than it is to write a good ad.

Too many ads that try not to go over the reader's head end up beneath his notice.

I regard a great ad as the most beautiful thing in the world.