Donald Fagen Quotes

The music business looks like, you know, innocent schoolboys compared to the TV business. They care about nothing but profit.

Advertising is the principal reason why the business man has come to inherit the earth.

When you look at what people consider success in the music industry, it's just terrible music.

Most entertainment is trying to get you. It's tested, like toothpaste.

Trying to do business without advertising is like winking at a pretty girl through a pair of green goggles. You may know what you are doing, but no one else does.

Brand loyalty starts in the cradle and ends in the grave, as I wrote in my first book, 'Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers.'

It's all very well setting up your own brand of face cream or exercise wear - but Christ, it's so shallow.

It's the power of the brand. We've never formally advertised.

A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn reputation by trying to do hard things well.

There just is exponentially more money in the movie business than in the music business. As a result there are more people involved in the creative process.

I don't think I'd get caught up in the crazy side of the music industry because it's just not in my nature.

The business of the advertiser is to see that we go about our business with some magic spell or tune or slogan throbbing quietly in the background of our minds.

With over 70 licensees, not sure if there is much left. Maybe oxygen? Ed Hardy is unique in that we have a broad range of products and something for everyone.

Storytelling is the game. It's what we all do. It's why Nike is Nike, it's why Apple is Apple, it's why Walt Disney built Disney World and it's why Vince McMahon makes a billion dollars.

As an actor, you can believe that you are the reason for a show's success, but these things are a brand name now. They're like Coca-Cola. It's like, with or without you, people are still gonna drink it.

A lot of bad music sells a million copies; I don't think it's a good litmus test for whether things are going well.

The desire to hit a big home run is dominating the music business.

Lots of people, from what I can see, just want to get into the music business for the glamour of it. But there isn't any, really. It's so up and down this industry, but if you really love it, nothing can stop you.

At the end of the day, there's only a few major stars in the music business, and then there's all these people that are aspiring to be that.

Nowadays people sell millions of records that can't sing.

My background is that I've spent a lot of time marketing entertainment. One of the old saws in package goods is you can take something that is popular and you can make it more popular. But if you take something less popular, you can't automatically market it into the same success as something that's already popular.

Music and the music business are two different things.

Brand is just a perception, and perception will match reality over time. Sometimes it will be ahead, other times it will be behind. But brand is simply a collective impression some have about a product.

It has become a certainty now that if you will only advertise sufficiently you may make a fortune by selling anything.

Advertising ought to work by telling you what it is you want to tell, you should understand what you want us to do, what you want us to think, where you want us to shop.