Tom Abbott

I quickly figured out [that] the one ability I’d better have is to create relationships.

Test ideas in the marketplace. You learn from hearing a range of perspectives. Consultation helps engender the support decisions need to be successfully implemented.

While several parties have expressed interest in buying the company, I’m not shopping it, I haven’t sold it and I’m not about to sell it.

Many manufacturers secretly question whether advertising really sells their product, but are vaguely afraid that their competitors might steal a march on them if they stopped.

A good advertisement is one which sells the product without drawing attention to itself.

Nothing can be made except by makers, nothing can be managed except by managers. Money cannot make anything and money cannot manage anything.

I notice increasing reluctance on the part of marketing executives to use judgment; they are coming to rely too much on research, and they use it as a drunkard uses a lamp post for support, rather than for illumination.

Once you have a product that you are happy with, you the need to centralize things to continue growth.

The best ideas come as jokes. Make your thinking as funny as possible.

[On Laura Nyro] I said to Laura ‘You know Laura, I think we should sell your music publishing company. I think right now is the right time you have three songs in the top ten this may never happen again and I think we can get a lot of money for it.’ And I made a deal with Clive Davis to sell Tuna Fish Music for $4 million. And that was a hell of a lot of money in 1969. It made her famous, it made her rich. It got people to listen to her music with her singing.

Ninety-nine percent of advertising doesn’t sell much of anything.

Some people have so much respect for their superiors they have none left for themselves.

Luck is always the last refuge of laziness and incompetence.

We know everything about our clients – if they like their dressing gowns heated, what colour flowers they like, if their chef works left-handed – we know everything and we incorporate it into our work for them.

Every advertisement should be thought of as a contribution to the complex symbol which is the brand image.