Leo Burnett was an American advertising executive who founded Leo Burnett Company, a leading global marketing firm. Known for creating iconic brands like Tony the Tiger and the Marlboro Man, Burnett's approach to advertising emphasized creativity, human connection, and storytelling. His legacy continues to inspire marketers, advertisers, and entrepreneurs to focus on building genuine relationships with audiences and using creativity to drive impactful, meaningful campaigns. His work remains a testament to the power of imagination in business.

"To swear off making mistakes is very easy. All you have to do is swear off having ideas."



"The greatest thing to be achieved in advertising, in my opinion, is believability, and nothing is more believable than the product itself."



"Advertising says to people, 'Here's what we've got. Here's what it will do for you. Here's how to get it.'"



"The work of an advertising agency is warmly and immediately human. It deals with human needs, wants, dreams and hopes. Its 'product' cannot be turned out on an assembly line."



"Whether or not the standard of living made possible by mass production and in turn by mass circulation, is supported by and filled with the work of us hucksters, I guess is something that only history can decide."



"I have learned that it is far easier to write a speech about good advertising than it is to write a good ad."



"Advertising is the ability to sense, interpret... to put the very heart throbs of a business into type, paper and ink."



"I have learned to respect ideas, wherever they come from. Often they come from clients. Account executives often have big creative ideas, regardless of what some writers think."



"Anyone who thinks that people can be fooled or pushed around has an inaccurate and pretty low estimate of people - and he won't do very well in advertising."



"I have learned that trying to guess what the boss or the client wants is the most debilitating of all influences in the creation of good advertising."



"Good advertising does not just circulate information. It penetrates the public mind with desires and belief."



"The secret of all effective originality in advertising is not the creation of new and tricky words and pictures, but one of putting familiar words and pictures into new relationships."



"The secret of all effective advertising is not the creation of new and tricky words and pictures, but one of putting familiar words and pictures into new relationships."



"I have learned that you can't have good advertising without a good client, that you can't keep a good client without good advertising, and no client will ever buy better advertising than he understands or has an appetite for."



"If you don't get noticed, you don't have anything. You just have to be noticed, but the art is in getting noticed naturally, without screaming or without tricks."



"I am one who believes that one of the greatest dangers of advertising is not that of misleading people, but that of boring them to death."



"Too many ads that try not to go over the reader's head end up beneath his notice."



"A good basic selling idea, involvement and relevancy, of course, are as important as ever, but in the advertising din of today, unless you make yourself noticed and believed, you ain't got nothin'."



"The sole purpose of business is service. The sole purpose of advertising is explaining the service which business renders."



"Regardless of the moral issue, dishonesty in advertising has proved very unprofitable."

