Gratuitous Insights

Insanity: Insights from outsiders

Insanity:  "A more or less permanent derangement of one or more psychical functions."  

"Time spent in the advertising business seems to create a permanent deformity like the Chinese habit of foot binding."

"Advertising life is like a grindstone: whether it grinds you down or polishes you up depends on what you're made of."

"In advertising there is a saying that if you can keep your head while all those around you are losing theirs, then you just don't understand the problem."

Making advertising slightly more sane:
Lessons immortalized in GMO Agency employee booklets

both handbook covers.jpg
  • The only authority here is the power of your intellect.
  • If you empower dummies, you get bad decisions faster.
  • The art of leadership is saying no, not yes.  It is very easy to say yes.  —Tony Blair
  • What has not been examined impartially has not been well examined.  Skepticism is therefore the first step toward truth. 
  • Practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect. —Vince Lombardi
  • The power of an idea can be measured by the degree of resistance it attracts.
  • There is no limit to what a person can do if they don't mind who gets the credit.
  • If you stand for something, you will always find some people for you and some against you.  If you stand for nothing, you will find nobody against you and nobody for you.  —Bill Bernbach
  • A new idea is delicate. It can be killed by a sneer or a yawn; it can be stabbed to death by a quip and worried to death by a frown on the right person's brow.
  • You miss 100% of the shots you never take.  —Wayne Gretzky
  • Executives fall into three categories: those that make things happen; those that watch things happen; those that wonder what happened.
  • Beware of the most dangerous person in our business: the articulate incompetent  —Jim Cathcart
  • A brand is like a shining beacon in the sea of ambiguity and complexity.
  • The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of meeting the schedule has been forgotten.
  • Be as simple as possible, but no simpler.  —Albert Einstein
  • Advertising sucks. Well done advertising sucks better.