austinkleon: Howard Gossage, The Book of Gossage I began the year—my first year working in the marketing business—reading The Idea Writers and Hey, Whipple, both books that are both fairly optimistic about doing good work in the industry. Then, mid-year, I read Ogilvy’s Confessions, now, I’m finishing out the year with Gossage, who was a brilliant advertiser, but who said, “I don’t know a single first class brain in the business who has any respect for it.” Gossage is one of those guys you’re really surprised isn’t more talked about today—I mean, in addition to his ads, the man basically made Marshall McLuhan a household name, taking it upon himself to run a campaign introducing McLuhan’s work to the states. British director Ashley Pollak has been trying to make a film about Gossage, but I’m not sure how it’s going. Here’s the trailer → There are so many ideas in this book, so many brilliant bits, that it’s a little dizzying. His prose is not very easy to slog through, but it’s worth mining for the diamonds. Here are a few: “The real fact of the matter is that nobody reads ads. People read what interests them. Sometimes it’s an ad.” “Copywriters are very strange people who have only reached copywriting after eliminating every other means of making a living through writing” “‘Disimprovement’ is a wonderful word invented by an Irish client of ours. It means making things worse by trying to make them better.” “There are unlimited ways of making a lousy idea look brilliant….there is hardly any way at all to make a lousy idea read brilliantly.” “[A performance is] a book which is published and read simultaneously.” “I don’t know how to speak to everybody, only to somebody.” More Gossage →

austinkleon:

Howard Gossage, The Book of Gossage

I began the year—my first year working in the marketing business—reading The Idea Writers and Hey, Whipple, both books that are both fairly optimistic about doing good work in the industry. Then, mid-year, I read Ogilvy’s Confessions, now, I’m finishing out the year with Gossage, who was a brilliant advertiser, but who said, “I don’t know a single first class brain in the business who has any respect for it.”

Gossage is one of those guys you’re really surprised isn’t more talked about today—I mean, in addition to his ads, the man basically made Marshall McLuhan a household name, taking it upon himself to run a campaign introducing McLuhan’s work to the states.

British director Ashley Pollak has been trying to make a film about Gossage, but I’m not sure how it’s going. Here’s the trailer →

There are so many ideas in this book, so many brilliant bits, that it’s a little dizzying. His prose is not very easy to slog through, but it’s worth mining for the diamonds.

Here are a few:

  • “The real fact of the matter is that nobody reads ads. People read what interests them. Sometimes it’s an ad.”
  • “Copywriters are very strange people who have only reached copywriting after eliminating every other means of making a living through writing”
  • “‘Disimprovement’ is a wonderful word invented by an Irish client of ours. It means making things worse by trying to make them better.”
  • “There are unlimited ways of making a lousy idea look brilliant….there is hardly any way at all to make a lousy idea read brilliantly.”
  • “[A performance is] a book which is published and read simultaneously.”
  • “I don’t know how to speak to everybody, only to somebody.”

More Gossage →