PUFFERY
"Advertisements are now so numerous that they are very negligently perused, and it is therefore become necessary to gain attention by magnificence of promises, and by eloquences sometimes sublime and sometimes pathetic."
Dr. Samuel Johnson, English author, quoted in Rhodas Thomas Tripp, The International Thesaurus of Quotations, 1970, New York, NY: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, p. 18.
"The art of advertisement, after the American manner, has introduced into all our life such a lavish use of superlatives, that no standard of value whatever is intact."
Wyndham Lewis (1932), British author & painter, quoted in Robert Andrews, The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations, 1993, New York, NY: Columbia University Press, p. 19.
"Who's kidding whom? What's the difference between Giant and Jumbo? Quart and full quart? Two-ounce and big two-ounce? What does Extra Long mean? What's a tall 24-inches? And what busy shopper can tell?"
Marya Mannes (1964), quoted in Stephen Donadio, The New York Public Library: Book of Twentieth-Century American Quotations, 1992, New York: Stonesong Press, p. 70.
"Examples of exaggeration can be found in almost any advertising medium. The use of the superlative is altogether too prevalent. 'The finest,' 'the best,' 'the greatest,' 'the purest,' 'the most economical,' and so on ad infinitum, are hurled at the public everywhere. Surely not all products of the sme class can be the best or the finest."
Daniel Starch, Principles of Advertising, 1923, Chicago, IL: A.W. Shaw Company, p. 438.
"Such exaggerations have been so common that the public takes them with a grain of salt and partly excuses them as being due to the advertiser's license of self-assertiveness. Nevertheless, the fact remains that superlative generalities are weak arguments and far less convincing than a statement of facts. Much advertising copy would be improved immensely by doing away with brag and substituting actual facts about the merits of the article."
Daniel Starch, Principles of Advertising, 1923, Chicago, IL: A.W. Shaw Company, p. 439.