‘There isn’t much to choose between surgeons in manual dexterity. What distinguishes the great surgeon is that he knows more than other surgeons’

Creative Director As a Creative Director myself I dare to list the attributes needed for this back-breaking job. You must be: 1 A good psychologist. 2 Willing and able to set high standards. 3 An efficient administrator. 4 Capable of strategic thinking – ‘positioning’ and all that. 5 Research-minded. 6 Equally good at television and print. 7 Equall

His definition of a good advertisement was that ‘its public is not only strongly sold by it, but both the public and the advertiser remember it for a long time as an admirable piece of work.’

When faced with selling ‘parity’ products, all you can hope to do is explain their virtues more persuasively than your competitors, and to differentiate them by the style of your advertising. This is the ‘added value’ which advertising contributes, and I am not sufficiently puritanical to hate myself for it.

I don’t suggest that you have to be a poet, but you won’t climb the ladder very high unless you can write lucid memoranda. I persuaded two of my partners to write a book on the subject. I commend it to you.1

It will help you recognize a big idea if you ask yourself five questions:

What kind of paragons are the men and women who run successful agencies? My observation has been that they are enthusiasts. They are intellectually honest. They have the guts to face tough decisions. They are resilient in adversity. Most of them are

If you make your ads look like editorial pages, you will get more readers. Far more.

Agencies add new services the way universities add new courses. Nothing wrong with that if you also discontinue services which have outlived their relevance. To keep your boat moving through the water, keep scraping the barnacles off its bottom.