Monday, October 17, 2005

Advertising, a sermon, and graffiti

A bunch of quotes from Common Sense in Advertising by Charles F Adams

Whenever a copywriter puts pen to paper the odds are about one in four he will do his client more damage than good.

Sometimes you can create a good campaign in ten minutes. After ten hours of thinking. And ten years of practice.

A fear seems to have developed of late that advertising men are omniscient. These fears are probably unfounded.

If a product is unworthy, advertising performs a service in bringing its shortcomings quickly to light. In fact, advertising may on the whole be more valuable in hastening failure than speeding success.

From the sermon preached by the Rev Maclean in the movie, A River Runs Through It.

‘Each one of us here today will at one time in our lives look upon a loved one who is in need and ask the same question: We are willing help, Lord, but what, if anything, is needed? For it is true we can seldom help those closest to us. Either we don't know what part of ourselves to give or, more often than not, the part we have to give is not wanted. And so it is those we live with, and should know, who elude us. But we can still love them - we can love completely without complete understanding.’

Some graffiti:
Irony is the refuge of the educated.
Graffiti on a corrugated iron fence in Dunedin.

I know who wrote this.
More graffiti, this time in the alleyway between York Place and Filleul St, Dunedin.

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