Morris Hite - Advertising Quotes

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Is advertising moral? It is part and parcel of the American free enterprise system.... I challenge anybody to show any [economic] system that has done as much for so many in so short a time.

Morris Hite
It takes good clients to make a good advertising agency. Regardless of how much talent an ad agency may have, it is ineffective without good products and services to advertise.

Morris Hite
Contrary to what self-appointed protectors of the consumer so loudly proclaim, advertising does not cause people to buy bad products. Nothing will put a bad product out of business faster than a good advertising campaign. Advertising causes people to try a product once, but poor quality eliminates any possibility of a repeat purpose.

Morris Hite
Advertising is salesmanship mass produced. No one would bother to use advertising if he could talk to all his prospects face-to-face. But he can't.

Morris Hite
Advertising moves people toward goods; merchandising moves goods toward people.

Morris Hite
There's no secret formula for advertising success, other than to learn everything you can about the product. Most products have some unique characteristic, and the really great advertising comes right out of the product and says something about the product that no one else can say. Or at least no one else is saying.

Morris Hite
Ethics in advertising? Advertising is about as ethical as the American public. About as ethical as you and your neighbors. About as selfish as you and your acquaintances. It has about the same moral standards as the upper socioeconomic strata of society because it is created, approved and paid for by the upper echelons of modern U.S. society. I'll modify that to say that it is a little more ethical, a little more moral, than the upper economic strata of society. Why? Because advertising lives in a fish bowl. It is the most visible of all commercial practices. It has 200 million critics. And no business, no communications medium, no art form (or whatever you want to call advertising), no other enterprise has so many watchdogs.

Morris Hite
There is no such thing as national advertising. All advertising is local and personal. It's one man or woman reading one newspaper in the kitchen or watching TV in the den.

Morris Hite
Techniques of art, layout, typography, radio and television productions and fine writing are important. Nevertheless, they are secondary to the basic selling proposition around which the ad or commercial is built. 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 or listener say, 'I believe I'll buy one when I'm shopping tomorrow,' or 'I wonder if Joe could get one for me wholesale? The place to start in advertising is the basic selling appeal. An appeal that fulfills some existing need in the prospect's mind, an appeal that can be readily understood and believed.

Morris Hite
There is more money wasted in advertising by underspending than by overspending. Years ago someone said that underspending in advertising is like buying a ticket halfway to Europe. You've spent your money but you never get there.

Morris Hite