Insist on a five-year contract. This will delight the agency – and protect you from being resigned if one of your competitors ever tries to seduce them with a bigger budget.

You don’t stand a tinker’s chance of producing successful advertising unless you start by doing your homework. I have always found this extremely tedious, but there is no substitute for it. First, study the product you are going to advertise. The more you know about it, the more likely you are to come up with a big idea for selling it.

All my experience says that for a great many products, long copy sells more than short.

The early success of Young & Rubicam was due more than anything else to the fact that General Foods was their biggest client. One day Rubicam told the head of General Foods that his account had grown too big for any one agency; he should hire a second and later a third. This is how Benton & Bowles got their first major account, and it is wh

About 35 per cent of supermarket sales come from products which did not exist ten years ago. You can judge the vitality of a company by the number of new products it brings to market.

Do I wish I had thought of it myself? 3 Is it unique? 4 Does it fit the strategy to perfection? 5 Could it be used for 30 years?

Avoid clients whose ethos is incompatible with yours. I refused Charles Revson of Revlon and Lew Rosenstiel of Schenley. Beware of ventures which spend little or nothing today but might become major advertisers, if all goes well. Servicing such non-accounts can be expensive, and few of them make it.

First, study the product you are going to advertise. The more you know about it, the more likely you are to come up with a big idea for selling it.

Make sure that what you promise is important to your customer.