The Internet is king. Newspapers are dead or dying. Magazines are shrinking every day. Ad budgets are being cut. The bottom line is now the only line in advertising.
I came from a poor family in Coney Island. I learned to write by reading the 'Post.' This was my education.
I think it's good to have switched to a much more visual world and that people are not all that interested in words.
There's an eternal war between a creative person and the business person.
The Google model of targeted advertising is appealing because it claims to cut down on waste. We need to ask how that efficiency can be brought to creative process.
The whole idea of a spokesman is a joke and a fraud if you drop someone like a hot potato if there's controversy.
The fact is, Joe Isuzu is very successful at selling cars.
The Hamptons are filled with people who are winners Monday through Friday.
Everybody makes a lot of money when the French come to town.
I want to die at my desk.
No one wants to risk a million dollars on a few laughs. The big, flashy commercials are out. The soft sell is out.
Imagine there wasn't photography. Where would we be? How would I remember what I looked like as a kid? It links us all. It keeps us all together; it's what our history is.
A computer is a wonderful thing, but it's cold, and what comes out of it is sort of cold.
My grandmother would start making her meat sauce at 7 in the morning on Sunday, and within five or six hours, that smell would be all through the house.
What I love about the Don Draper character is that he's so real and filled with all these contradictions.
I've seen very few Hispanics and blacks who have been able to work their way into the advertising end of business.
No kid ever graduated school and said, 'I want to go into advertising.' Advertising is almost everyone's second or third choice.
People who are visiting Long Island find it's very beautiful, and they are quick to try Long Island foods, wines and other products.
There's still a place for someone to come up with a strong headline, some copy in a commercial that's well written. I'm not saying it was better in the old days; it's just a totally different way of communicating.
I honestly believe that advertising is the most fun you can have with your clothes on.
If the FBI is now in charge of bad taste, we're all doomed.
Sad to say, negative advertising really works.
The French are simply incapable of telling the truth.
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.
It goes back to all of us wanting to be in Hollywood. We're all dying to win an Oscar.
Thank you for making me nouveau riche.
I always had more women working for me than men.
I ran for political office in the Hamptons once in a war I was having with the village. I came in, there were four people running, and I came in around third. It was over my food market - they arrested me. I just wanted to go for office because I thought it would be an interesting to do.
Once people feel comfortable with something, they say, 'Let's try it.'
I came into the advertising business in 1952, at the age of sixteen, as a delivery boy for a stuffy, old-line advertising agency named Ruthruff and Ryan, which could have served as the setting for the 'Mad Men' television series without moving a desk.
I only know two to three people that I grew up with in advertising in the 1960s who are married to the same women.
My day is spent hiding from people.
'Business Week' is guilty of very shoddy reporting.
I don't remember most of the '60s and '70s.
I came into advertising in 1961. I had been turned down for jobs on the Ford account in the late Fifties as 'not their type.' If it hadn't been for Bill Bernbach, I would now be sitting in some luncheonette, continuing my life as a messenger.
People don't generally like advertising that takes a stand.
I'm careful to pay every single penny on my taxes. I don't have any money offshore.
Money is being wasted on adverts that go right over a consumer's head. They may win awards at Cannes, but they lose at the cash register.
Let's face it: in advertising, you are paid more, but you die younger. It's not very forgiving. Like sports stars, you're in it during your better years, and then you're out looking for work.
Humor works, and it's the best way to get attention without spending a lot of money.
I was the first advertising person who people could identify with.
Sometimes you have to scare people to save their lives. But I'm very much against it if you're trying to sell a product.
Once you're not No. 1, it doesn't matter where you are.
Did I grow up thinking I'd ever be paged at the Beverly Hills Hotel? Did I ever think I'd make so much money writing ads? No.
In my world - advertising - the Super Bowl is judgment day. If politicians have Election Day and Hollywood has the Oscars, advertising has the Super Bowl.
At one point, I had over 800 employees, and I always paid all health care for my people - including a man who was my assistant who got HIV. I wound up paying his medical bills, which went into the hundreds of thousands. I'm not making myself out to be a saint. I did the right thing.
I'm waiting for the candidate who says, 'I'm keeping things exactly the way they are. I like it this way.'
I've never met a client who wants to be the worst.
Most account guys live with fear in their hearts.
