• “I do not regard advertising as entertainment or an art form, but as a medium of information. When I write an advertisement, I don't want you to tell me that you find it creative. I want you to find it so interesting that you buy the product… When I set up shop on Madison Avenue in 1949, I assumed that advertising would undergo several major changes before I retired. So far, there has been only one change that can be called major: television has emerged as the most potent medium for selling most products. Yes, there have been other changes and I shall describe them, but their significance has been exaggerated by pundits in search of trendy labels. For example, the concept of brand images, which I popularized in 1953, was not really new; Claude Hopkins had described it 20 years before. The so-called Creative Revolution, usually ascribed to Bill Bernbach and myself in the fifties, could equally well have been ascribed to N.W. Ayer and Young & Rubicam in the thirties. Meanwhile, most of the advertising techniques which worked when I wrote Confessions of an Advertising Man still work today. Consumers still buy products whose advertising promises them value for money, beauty, nutrition, relief from suffering, social status and so on. All over the world.” - intro

Do Your Homework

• “I have seen one advertisement actually sell not twice as much, not three times as much, but 19½ times as much as another. Both advertisements occupied the same space. Both were run in the same publication. Both had photographic illustrations. Both had carefully written copy. The difference was that one used the right appeal and the other used the wrong appeal” - how does it benefit the customer???
• Work hard in the dark to shine in the light: “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, the further you go - “The more you know about it, the more likely you are to come up with a big idea for selling it. When I got the Rolls-Royce account, I spent three weeks reading about the car and came across a statement that 'at sixty miles an hour, the loudest noise comes from the electric clock. This became the headline, and it was followed by 607 words of factual copy.” → he’d write these long ads that appeal to many different desires of a potential car buyer, like with Rolls Royce or his new Mercedes ad, taking sales from 10k cars to 40k per year (“You give up things when you buy a Mercedes. Things like rattles, rust, and shabby workmanship”)

Promise, Large Promise is the Soul of an Advertisement

• Must study what drives their desire: “Now comes research among consumers. Find out how they think about your kind of product, what language they use when they discuss the subject, what attributes are important to them, and what promise would be most likely to make them buy your brand.” - even just having conversations with people will give you a sense, it doesn’t have to be a huge study
• “Research can determine the most persuasive promise. Promise, large promise is the soul of an advertisement; said Samuel Johnson. When he auctioned off the contents of the Anchor Brewery he made the following promise: 'We are not here to sell boilers and vats, but the potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams of avarice.' Dr. Johnson was right 200 years ago, and there is abundant evidence that he is still right today. Advertising which promises no benefit to the consumer does not sell, yet the majority of campaigns contain no promise whatever. (That is the most important sentence in this book. Read it again.)” - it’s important to pay attention to how customers choose to describe your product, so you lean into that as the benefit - “It can find out what factors are most important in the purchase decision, and what vocabulary consumers use when talking about your kind of product.”

A Brand is a Promise

• “Every advertisement should be thought of as a contribution to the brand image. It follows that your advertising should consistently project the same image, year after year. This is difficult to achieve, because there are always forces at work to change the advertising - like a new agency, or a new Marketing Director who wants to make his mark.” - Buffett a brand is a promise - “It pays to give most products an image of quality - a First Class ticket. This is particularly true of products whose brand name is visible to your friends, like beer, cigarettes, and automobiles: products you wear. If your advertising looks cheap or shoddy, it will rub off on your product. Who wants to be seen using shoddy products?” → SONY would consistently commit to selling a high-quality brand, with their decision to open up their own retail stores and not become an OEM
• “I doubt if more than one campaign in a hundred contains a big idea, I am supposed to be one of the more fertile inventors of big ideas, but in my long career as a copywriter, I have not had more than 20, if that. Big ideas come from the unconscious. This is true in art, in science, and in advertising. But your unconscious has to be well informed, or your idea will be irrelevant. Stuff your conscious mind with information, then unhook your rational thought process. You can help this process by going for a long walk, or taking a hot bath, or drinking half a pint of claret. Suddenly, if the telephone line from your unconscious is open, a big idea wells up within you.”

You Aren’t Advertising to a Standing Army, You are Advertising to a Moving Parade

• Repeat your winners: “If you are lucky enough to write a good advertisement, repeat it until it stops selling. Scores of good advertisements have been discarded before they lost their potency… You aren't advertising to a standing army; you are advertising to a moving parade. The advertisement which sold a refrigerator to couples who got married last year will probably be just as successful with couples who get married this year. A good advertisement can be thought of as a radar sweep, constantly hunting new prospects as they come into the market. Get a good radar, and keep it sweeping.” - big brand campaigns may work for years like Skittles Taste the Rainbow, Tiger Frosted Flakes, Got Milk, Apple Think Different, Nike Just Do It…