Sublime

Says James Webb Young, one of the best copywriters in history, ‘Every type of advertiser has the same problem: to be believed. The mail-order man knows nothing so potent for this purpose as the testimonial, yet the general advertiser seldom uses it.’

We now needed a name for this sauce, and what we came up with—Newman’s Own Industrial Strength All-natural Venetian-style Spaghetti Sauce—horrified our brokers. “Industrial strength! They’ll think it’s for factories—they’ll never buy it to put on spaghetti.” As usual, we disregarded their “expertise”

The purpose of my ads was to project the agency as knowing more about advertising. You may argue that this strategy was ill-advised, knowledge being no guarantee of ‘creativity.’ But at least it was unique, because no other agency could have run such advertisements – they lacked the required knowledge. My ads not only promised useful information, t

‘Almost any question can be answered, cheaply, quickly and finally, by a test campaign. And that’s the way to answer them – not by arguments around the table.’ ‘Ad writers forget they are salesmen and try to be performers. Instead of sales, they seek applause.’ ‘Whenever possible we introduce a personality into our ads. By making a man famous we ma

Now look at the advertisements in the same magazines. You will see that: O Illustrations are given priority over copy. O The copy is often set in sanserif, which is hard to read; we are accustomed to serifs in books, magazines and newspapers. O The copy is often set in one column of 120 characters or more – too wide to be readable. O Few of the pho