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This is my 50th Marketing column. You may react to that momentous

news by thinking: ’Is that all? The boring fart has been wittering on

forever and a day and never has anything to say. Enough already!’ Or, as

I would naturally hope: ’Gosh! It seems only yesterday I read his

utterly brilliant first piece - doesn’t time fly when you’re reading a

fun column?’.

Or, most probable response of all: ’Who gives a toss?’

That being the case, and as Peter Mandelson refused to commemorate my

very nearly millennial anniversary by building even a tiny domelet

outside the Groucho, I have decided to celebrate the event by handing

this 50th column to others. To be precise, I have given it over to

half-a-dozen notable quotes about advertising. (But as it’s my

anniversary, I won’t be able to resist putting my own spoke in).

’Advertising is the rattling of a stick in the swill basket of

capitalism’(George Orwell, Keep The Aspidistra Flying). Orwell, who

detested advertising - and capitalism - intended this aphorism to be a

fierce denunciation.

It isn’t. On the contrary, it is accurate and flattering. From the

animals’ point of view the stick rattling in the bucket tells them

grub’s up, and that’s good news. So is most advertising.

’An advertising agency is 15% commission and 85% confusion’ (Comedian

Fred Allen). The thought is right, but the figures are now old hat.

’Half my advertising is wasted, but I don’t know which half.’ This

twaddle is usually attributed to the first Lord Leverhulme, but almost

definitely came from the American publisher Adolph S. Ochs in 1916. It

sounds good, but what does it mean? Does it mean each alternate second

in every commercial does not work? Every alternate person who sees the

ad ignores it? It’s codswallop, and my life in advertising will be much

enhanced if I never hear it again.

’People don’t buy from clowns’ (Copywriter Claude Hopkins). This famous,

and once highly influential aphorism, probably set advertising back

half-a-century. It is certainly true that advertisements don’t have to

be funny, but innumerable research studies have established, beyond

further argument, that advertisements which are liked are likely to be

more effective than those which are not. How anyone could ever have

thought otherwise is utterly baffling.

’Advertising is the whip which hustles humanity up the road to the

better mousetrap’ (Historian E.S. Turner). Not one of advertising’s

best-known quotations, but it ought to be. Advertising accelerates

commercial growth and moves economies forward faster. Advertising’s

ability to expedite desirable change is probably its most important

economic function.

’Advertising nourishes the consuming passion of man. It creates wants

for a better standard of living. It sets up before a man the goal of a

better home, better clothing, better food for himself and his

family.

It spurs individual exertion and greater production’ (Sir Winston

Churchill).

What more can I say?

Winston Fletcher is chairman of the Bozell UK Group.