Advertising Critique Quotes

Advertising is the art of convincing people to spend money they don't have for something they don't need.

The solution as consumers is - perhaps surprisingly - to take adverts very, very seriously. We should ask ourselves what it is that we find lovely in them - the visions of friendship, togetherness, repose, or whatever. And then consider what would actually help us find these qualities in our lives.

We were told our campaign wasn't sufficiently slick. We regard that as a compliment.

You can enjoy the quality of the ad and not let them pressure you to buy what you don't really need. I have had fun taking back superlatives and just ordinary good words and phrases from ads and trying to restore some of their life to them.

I did not approve of the TV spot, and when my opinion was asked, I recommended that it be removed from the air.

I just saw an ad the other day that I couldn't believe. There was this woman-and I think it's degrading to womankind-she was going out of her mind over a new product called "A Thousand Flushes." Here she was in her toilet, saying, "Oh, I love this product!" and, "My life is complete!" Good God-if your joy depends on "A Thousand Flushes," you're sick!

Television screens saturated with commercials promote the utopian and childish idea that all problems have fast, simple, and technological solutions. You must banish from your mind the naive but commonplace notion that commercials are about products. They are about products in the same sense that the story of Jonah is about the anatomy of whales.

I think that my peers deserve more than products to buy wrapped up in advertising. We need ideas to share and causes to believe in - opportunities to lead and teach.

I can't stand makeup commercials. 'Do you need a lipstick that keeps your lips kissable?' No, I need a lipstick that gets me equal pay for equal work. How about an eye shadow that makes me stop thinking I'm too fat?

Denunciations of the manipulativeness of advertisers can unfortunately all too easily be turned on their heads into denunciations of the gullibility of consumers. Both are forms of scapegoating, neither accomplishes anything.

Creativity for the greater good is where I aspire to be, and I mean that on several levels: of course, working with worthy causes that need support but also not just contributing to the pollution of crap advertising.

I read Naomi Klein's 'No Logo' when I was 15. It's one of the things that's shaped my relationship to fame - to endorsements, to selling things.

On TV, talking heads wrung their hands over a lack of traditional feminine values and wondered if girls’ sports were to blame. Then they cut to a commercial featuring a sexy college coed vacuuming her dorm room in her underwear.

As a private person, I have a passion for landscape, and I have never seen one improved by a billboard. Where every prospect pleases, man is at his vilest when he erects a billboard. When I retire from Madison Avenue, I am going to start a secret society of masked vigilantes who will travel around the world on silent motor bicycles, chopping down posters at the dark of the moon. How many juries will convict us when we are caught in these acts of beneficent citizenship?

I like to read the 'Financial Times' when I'm traveling. 'Economist.' 'Ad Busters.'

I'm against suppression of pornography. If you suppress guns - yes; if you want to suppress poverty - yes. These are the obscenities, the real brutalization of people. I am almost more outraged by ads for blue jeans or cars that sort of blatantly depict women not only as sex objects, but women that look younger than the age of consent, looking like they've just been raped or asking to be raped-utterly passive sex objects.

I'm sounding like an old fart talking about how bad advertising is today, but it's true. Advertising sucks. Guys like me and Bob Gage and certainly Bill Bernbach and two or three other guys, we exemplified and led the creative revolution.

The unsaid message of that endless rack of juniors' pushup bras? No matter what size you are, it still isn't good enough.

If people ever talked the way advertising sounded, they would be put away.