Marshall McLuhan Quotes

The public don't know what they want; it's my job to tell them.

There is no way for the American economic system to function without advertising. There is no other way to communicate enough information about enough products to enough people with enough speed.

Advertising generally works to reinforce consumer trends rather than to initiate them.

Whether you're selling soft drinks, snack foods or a sport, all good marketers know it is important for every single person to want to buy their product.

Without a doubt, what drives sales is letting people try our products.

Advertising is an environmental striptease for a world of abundance.

In order to be a great marketer, you have to be focused and intense and look at scarcity, urgency, activity and passion in the marketplace.

In America, they never make anything without first having a market survey to ask the public what they want. People only ask for things they already know about, so you don't get anything new that way. That's why American fashion is stuck.

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.

There just doesn't seem to be a market for something with aspiration anymore.

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.

When companies try to guess what consumers want, they essentially make the choice for consumers.

If you can sell green toothpaste in this country, you can sell opera.

Get your product in front of actual, living, breathing strangers. Your college roommate's approval does not mean there's market demand.

We're not in the business of shaping consumer demand. We respond to it.

When you take the individual out of the equation, then you're making programming based on some marketer's idea of what will sell, and not based on the idea of what an individual would like.

Television networks are a lot like automobile manufacturers or anyone else who's in commerce. If something out there catches on with the public... I guess you can call it 'market research.'

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

How do people know what they want until we show them?

When Republicans went to college and studied business, they took a course in marketing and found out how people really think. Progressives need to take a lesson from that.

Once you become more like Madison Avenue, you become acutely sensitive to what's going to annoy your clients.

When I did inventions, I always thought only of the invention itself, but the kids would ask for marketing materials.

In my experience, marketing is best when it proves the product it is supporting.

It is important to bear in mind that political campaigns are designed by the same people who sell toothpaste and cars.

My dad is a marketing mastermind.