112 Quotes about advertising, marketing, creativity and motivation

Many great people have given us incredible insight on marketing, advertising, creativity and motivation. Their thoughts are so relevant today in the world of severe competition and so many channels people use, which make marketing very hard. For your inspiration, here are 112 great quotes from people that are well-known names on the subject. If you are too bored to read it, just think: Where do some of the most brilliant marketing minds get their inspiration? From other brilliant minds, of course. So, I promise, you won't waste your time reading the whole list.

“Good marketing makes the company look smart. Great marketing makes the customer feel smart.” – Joe Chernov

"The greatest thing to be achieved in advertising, in my opinion, is believability, and nothing is more believable than the product itself." - Leo Burnett

"We want consumers to say, 'That's a hell of a product' instead of, 'That's a hell of an ad.'" - Leo Burnett

"The more informative your advertising, the more persuasive it will be." - David Ogilvy

"The advertisement is the most truthful part of a newspaper." - Thomas Jefferson

"The worst thing for a brand is to have a kind of false part of who they are exposed out there." - Lee Clow

"Telling lies does not work in advertising." - Tim Bell

"I am one who believes that one of the greatest dangers of advertising is not that of misleading people, but that of boring them to death." - Leo Burnett

"The most powerful element in advertising is the truth." - Bill Bernbach

"There is a great deal of advertising that is much better than the product. When that happens, all that the good advertising will do is put you out of business faster." - Jerry Della Femina

"Facts are irrelevant. What matters is what the consumer believes." - Seth Godin

"Never write an advertisement which you wouldn't want your own family to read. You wouldn't tell lies to your own wife. Don't tell them to mine. Do as you would be done by. If you tell lies about a product, you will be found out..." - David Ogilvy

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

"What you say in advertising is more important than how you say it." - David Ogilvy

"A good advertisement is one which sells the product without drawing attention to itself." - David Ogilvy

"Let's say you have $1,000,000 tied up in your little company and suddenly your advertising isn't working and sales are going down. And everything depends on it. Your future depends on it, your family's future depends on it, other people's families depend on it. Now, what do you want from me? Fine writing? Or do you want to see the goddamned sales curve stop moving down and start moving up?" - Rosser Reeves

“Don’t tell me how good you make it; tell me how good it makes me when I use it.” - Leo Burnett

"An ad is finished only when you no longer can find a single element to remove." - Robert Fleege

"On the average, five times as many people read the headlines as read the body copy." - David Ogilvy

"If you're trying to persuade people to do something, or buy something, it seems to me you should use their language, the language in which they think." - David Ogilvy

“Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people” – William Butler Yeats

"You have to be daring and make something that doesn’t look like anybody else." - Lee Clow

"It takes a big idea to attract the attention of consumers and get them to buy your product. Unless your advertising contains a big idea, it will pass like a ship in the night. I doubt if more than one campaign in a hundred contains a big idea." - David Ogilvy

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

"Creativity is like washing a pig. It’s messy. It has no rules. No clear beginning, middle or end. It’s kind of a pain in the ass, and when you’re done, you’re not sure if the pig is really clean or even why you were washing a pig in the first place." - Luke Sullivan

"Creativity and innovation are about finding unexpected solutions to obvious problems, or finding obvious solutions to unexpected problems." - Rei Inamoto

"If it doesn't sell, it isn't creative." - David Ogilvy

"There are a lot of great technicians in advertising. And unfortunately, they talk the best game. They know all the rules ... but there's one little rub. They forget that advertising is persuasion, and persuasion is not a science, but an art. Advertising is the art of persuasion."  - William Bernbach

"An idea can turn to dust or magic, depending on the talent that rubs against it." - Bill Bernbach

"To swear off making mistakes is very easy. All you have to do is to swear off having ideas." - Leo Burnett

"In the modern world of business, it is useless to be a creative, original thinker unless you can also sell what you create." - David Ogilvy

"I've learned that any fool can write a bad ad, but that it takes a real genius to keep his hands off a good one." - Leo Burnett

"Big ideas come from the unconscious. This is true in art, in science, and in advertising. But your unconscious has to be well informed, or your idea will be irrelevant. Stuff your conscious mind with information, then unhook your rational thought process." - David Ogilvy

“Creativity is intelligence having fun.” – Albert Einstein

“To think creatively, we must be able to look afresh at what we normally take for granted.” – George Kneller

“Creativity about life, in all aspects, I think, is still the secret of great creative people.” – Leo Burnett

“The best way to predict the future is to create it.” – Peter Drucker

“An essential aspect of creativity is not being afraid to fail.” – Edwin Land

“Whether B2B or B2C, I believe passionately that good marketing essentials are the same. We all are emotional beings looking for relevance, context and connection.” – Beth Comstock

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“Good marketers see consumers as complete human beings with all the dimensions real people have.” – Jonah Sachs

“Our jobs as marketers are to understand how the customer wants to buy and help them do so.” – Bryan Eisenberg

“Don’t be afraid to get creative and experiment with your marketing.” - Mike Volpe

"If you're a good marketing person, you have to be a little crazy." – Jim Metcalf

“The consumer is not a moron; she is your wife.” – David Ogilvy

“Our job is to connect to people, to interact with them in a way that leaves them better than we found them, more able to get where they’d like to go.” – Seth Godin

“Make your marketing so useful people would pay you for it.” – Jay Baer

“People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.” – Simon Sinek

“Today it's important to be present, be relevant and add value." – Nick Besbeas

“The best marketing doesn't feel like marketing.”  - Tom Fishburne

"Know thyself. Know the customer. Innovate." – Beth Comstock

"Instead of using technology to automate processes, think about using technology to enhance human interaction." – Tony Zambito

“If you are an artist, learn science. If you are a scientist, cultivate art.” – Karin Timpone

“We’re all learning here; the best listeners will end up the smartest.” - Josh Bernoff

“If your stories are all about your products and services, that’s not storytelling. It’s a brochure. Give yourself permission to make the story bigger.” – Jay Baer

“Marketing is no longer about the stuff that you make, but about the stories you tell.” - Seth Godin

“The stories that spread today empower us and give us belief in our own heroic potential.” – Jonah Sachs

"You can't sell anything if you can't tell anything." – Beth Comstock

“Speak to your audience in their language about what’s in their heart.” – Jonathan Lister

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” – Maya Angelou

“Build it, and they will come” only works in the movies. Social Media is a “build it, nurture it, engage them and they may come and stay.” – Seth Godin

"Social media are tools. Real time is a mindset.” – David Meerman Scott

“Social media is a contact sport.” - Margaret Molloy

“Successful companies in social media function more like entertainment companies, publishers, or party planners than as traditional advertisers.” - Erik Qualman

“If you get bored with social media, it’s because you are trying to get more value than you create.” – Fast Company

“Social media is about the people. Not about your business. Provide for the people and the people will provide for you.” – Matt Goulart

“Good content isn’t about good storytelling. It’s about telling a true story well.” - Ann Handley

“Content builds relationships. Relationships are built on trust. Trust drives revenue.” - Andrew Davis

“If your content isn't driving conversation, you're doing it wrong.” – Dan Roth

“Content is anything that adds value to the reader's life.” – Avinash Kaushik

“Content should ask people to do something and reward them for it.” – Lee Odden

“My goal is to spark something within the reader and allow it to initiate an idea they then can grow.” – Warren Whitlock

“Don’t settle: Don’t finish crappy books. If you don’t like the menu, leave the restaurant. If you’re not on the right path, get off it.” – Chris Brogan

“Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing about.” - Benjamin Franklin

“A brand is no longer what we tell the consumer it is -- it is what consumers tell each other it is.” – Scott Cook

"Your brand is a story unfolding across all customer touch points." – Jonah Sachs

"Making promises and keeping them is a great way to build a brand.” - Seth Godin

"If you can't explain it to a 6-year old, you don't know it yourself." - Albert Einstein

“Simplicity is the keynote of all true elegance. ? Coco Chanel

“Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.” – Dr. Seuss

“Never doubt a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” – Margaret Mead

“In the long history of humankind those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.” - Charles Darwin

"Marketing's job is never done. It's about perpetual motion. We must continue to innovate every day." – Beth Comstock

“New ideas are sometimes found in the most granular details of a problem where few others bother to look.” – Nate Silver

“I’d rather apologize than to be so timid as to never try to do anything smart or brave.” – Lee Clow

“If you’re not failing now and again, it’s a sign you’re not doing anything innovative.” - Woody Allen

“If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.” – Tony Robbins

“Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” - Henry Ford

“If you don’t have room to fail, you don’t have room to grow. – Jonathan Mildenhall

“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” – Socrates

“If you’re looking for the next big thing, and you’re looking where everyone else is, you’re looking in the wrong place.” – Mark Cuban

“Be where the world is going.” – Beth Comstock

“Think big and don’t listen to people who tell you it can’t be done. Life’s too short to think small.” – Tim Ferriss

“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you’re a leader.” - John Quincy Adams

“Inspiration doesn't respond to meeting requests. You can't schedule greatness.” – Jay Baer

"Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

“If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time.” - Zig Ziglar

“Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.” –Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“If your dreams don't scare you, they're not big enough.” - Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

“Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.” – Henry Ford

“Remember no one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

“You have brilliance in you, your contribution is valuable, and the art you create is precious. Only you can do, and you must.” – Seth Godin

“Bring the best of your authentic self to every opportunity.” - John Jantsch

“Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken.” - Oscar Wilde

“Do one thing every day that scares you.”? Eleanor Roosevelt

“People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing. That’s why we recommend it daily.” –Zig Ziglar

“How can you squander even one more day not taking advantage of the greatest shifts of our generation? How dare you settle for less when the world has made it so easy for you to be remarkable?” – Seth Godin

“A year from now, you'll wish you had started today.” - Karen Lamb

“Do or do not; there is no try.” – Yoda

“The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.” – Ayn Rand

“Don’t bunt. Aim out of the park. Aim for the company of immortals.” – David Ogilvy

The quote that is my favourite I have left for the end:

“It’s quite fun to do the impossible.” – Walt Disney