Bruce Barton Quotes

Good advertising can make people buy your product even if it sucks ... A dollar spent on brainwashing is more cost-effective than a dollar spent on product improvement.

A sellout is putting your name on any piece of crap and then expecting people to buy it because it's got your name on it. That's what a sellout is to me.

There are huge advertising budgets only when there's no difference between the products. If the products really were different, people would buy the one that's better. Advertising teaches people not to trust their judgment. Advertising teaches people to be stupid.

I don't believe in asking people to spend $15 on something they've never heard before. That's just unreasonable.

Advertising works most effectively when it's in line with what people are already trying to do.

When the trust is high, you get the trust dividend. Investors invest in brands people trust. Consumers buy more from companies they trust, they spend more with companies they trust, they recommend companies they trust, and they give companies they trust the benefit of the doubt when things go wrong.

It seemed to me to be a parable of the exchange of goods, rather Marxist in some ways, in the new world of global forces. What the forgers do is write the brand name to try and change it, and it works! Loads of people buy fake Prada handbags, or Chanel sunglasses; they've been changed. They have been truly, really changed.

In marketing, the familiar is everything.

The scientific world, the materialistic world, the world of commerce, the world of business, the world of individualism, the world of capitalism, world of communism - all these worlds are the old story now. Where we think we exploit nature, we exploit people. Market rules, profit rules, money rules. We work for name, fame, power, money, profit. That's the old story.

I went to school for marketing and advertising, so I have a special interest in good and funny commercials and why they work and why they're funny - which is one of the reasons I, like many people, like watching the Super Bowl, besides the game.

Well, there is a contradiction in a sense. If you're making commercials which sell products which are unhealthy or which are unnecessary, I think that you are part of a system - I am part of a system which encourages people to buy things and do things which are not to their best interest. And to that extent you could say it was contradictory.

People rarely buy what they need. They buy what they want.

Advertising reaches out to touch the fantasy part of people's lives. And you know, most people's fantasies are pretty sad.

People only give value to a thing if they have, at some point, been uncertain as to whether or not they'll get it.

…It’s like a spiral: They keep making everything more basic so it will appeal to everyone. And gradually, everyone gets used to everything being basic, so we get less and less varied as people, more simple. So the corps make everything even simpler. And it goes on and on.

in the comparatively short time between my childhood and my daughter's, the business society has ceased urging people to produce and is now exerting its very considerable influence to get them to consume.

The consumer isn't a moron; she is your wife. You insult her intelligence if you assume that a mere slogan and a few vapid adjectives will persuade her to buy anything. She wants all the information you can give her.

A lot of people don't know about music, but buy records. A lot of people that know about music can't afford to buy records.

A lot of people change their band names because they're looking for a change of atmosphere.

It's a civic virtue to be exposed to things that appear to be outside your interest. In a complex world, almost everything affects you – that closes the loop on pecuniary self-interest. Customers are always right, but people aren't.

What pays under capitalism is satisfying the common man, the customer. The more people you satisfy, the better for you.

We live in an era of consumerism and it's all about desire - based consumerism and it has nothing to do with things we actually need. What do you actually need? Food, clothing and shelter. Everything else is entertainment. It's just the idea that we're so wasteful. I think a lot of self - identity and inner - personal development is hampered by consumerism and capitalism because we see ourselves as a reflection of the TV, rather than as a reflection of the people who are around us, truly.

Until today the rights of people have always been put forward by a few individuals acting in the name of the masses. Today instead of people no longer want to be represented; each wants to speak for himself and participate directly - it's the same for the Negroes, for the Jews, for women.

From time immemorial, people have talked about peace without achieving it. Do we simply lack enough experience? Though we talk peace, we wage war. Sometimes we even wage war in the name of peace. . . . War may be too much a part of history to be eliminated—ever.

If I did not speak with people who call me names, I could not engage in politics.