Roy H. Williams Quotes

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

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

Forget words like 'hard sell' and 'soft sell.' That will only confuse you. Just be sure your advertising is saying something with substance, something that will inform and serve the consumer, and be sure you're saying it like it's never been said before.

The headline is the 'ticket on the meat.' Use it to flag down readers who are prospects for the kind of product you are advertising.

A good advertisement is one which sells the product without drawing attention to itself.

If you have a good selling idea, your secretary can write your ad for you.

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

You have to prove that the Freberg way will sell their product better than if they just did straight advertising. Whenever I give a lecture or seminar, that's what I try to get across to people. I hear very few radio commercials that sound like I could have written them or that they got the idea.

Think of a pitch in terms of advertising: You're trying to hook a reader the way a commercial tries to hook a detergent user.

It is not the purpose of the ad or commercial to make the reader or listener say, 'My what a clever ad.' It is the purpose of advertising to make the reader say, 'I believe I'll buy one when I'm shopping tomorrow'.

The very first law in advertising is to avoid the concrete promise and cultivate the delightfully vague.

If you look at the heritage of the best advertising, you can make stuff that is great for both readers and advertisers. I don't think Don Draper would have loved banner ads.

Good copy can't be written with tongue in cheek, written just for a living. You've got to believe in the product.

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

I have a theory that the best ads come from personal experience. Some of the good ones I have done have really come out of the real experience of my life, and somehow this has come over as true and valid and persuasive.

Good advertising does not just circulate information. It penetrates the public mind with desires and belief.

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.

The more informative your advertising, the more persuasive it will be.

What you say in advertising is more important than how you say it.

On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.

The headline is the most important element of an ad. It must offer a promise to the reader of a believable benefit. And it must be phrased in a way to give it memory value.

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'.

Advertising must respect the intelligence of its audience and if it does not prompt them to think, it will be instantly dismissed.

If an ad campaign is built around a weak idea - or as is so often the case, no idea at all - I don't give a damn how good the execution is, it's going to fail.

The first law in advertising is to avoid the concrete promise... and cultivate the delightfully vague.