靠著微薄的酬勞，李奧節儉度日，他每天早餐花15美分、午餐25美分、晚餐35美分。為了多賺一點稿費，他開始以“Leo N. Burnett”的署名，在其他報紙上發表“鐵路發展”的專欄，每周兩篇。同時，他也開始留意一年前就開闢的汽車業報導，篇幅從每周小專欄，擴大到全版的特別報導。
當時美國汽車工業蓬勃發展，大小車廠紛紛設立，迅速擴張。李奧也抵擋不住這股熱潮，決定加入汽車業。1915年春天，當得知自己的老同學溫特斯在底特律的派卡汽車工作時，他加入汽車業的決心更加堅定了。在溫特斯的建議下，他辭職前往底特律，如願以償進入凱迪拉克汽車公司（Cadillac Motor Company）。他主要負責《凱迪拉克情報志》雜誌的編輯工作，最初是周薪25美元，不久就增加到了40美元。
凱迪拉克汽車公司成為李奧·貝納的廣告學校，那段日子讓他終身難忘。當時，提倡廣告應與消費者共鳴的廣告大師瑪克瑪納斯（Theodore F MacManus）負責所有凱迪拉克的文案，他為凱迪拉克設計的“領袖的代價”曾轟動一時。為了更深入了解廣告，李奧閱讀所有的廣告專業刊物，剪下大大小小的報紙廣告及有關廣告的討論議題，並參加了許多廣告俱樂部。這段日子成為他後來進入廣告業的轉折點。
1、“Whenyoureachfor thestarsyou may not quite get one, but you won'tcomeup with a handful ofmud either.”
2、“Toswearoff making mistakes isveryeasy. All you have to do is swear off havingideas.”
3、“Loss of humility can wreck our judgment. Smug complacency can put a roadblock in front of our progress.”
4、“There is nosuchthing as a permanent advertising success.”
5、“Personal satisfaction, I believe, must come in a day-to-dayfeeling that one has earned his or her pay.”
6、“Rarely have I seen anyreallygreatadvertising created without a certain amount ofconfusion, throw-aways, bentnoses, irritation and downrightcursedness.”
7、“Fun without sellgetsnowherebut sell withoutfuntendsto become obnoxious.”
8、“Thesolepurpose of business is service. The sole purpose of advertising is explaining the servicewhich business renders.”
9、“One thing this company hasneverbeen is stuffy. And this is a valuable thing not to have been and is very much apartof what makes ustick.”
10、“Keep it simple. Let's do theobviousthing- the common thing- but let's do it uncommonlywell.”
11、“Themostfearful possibility thatliesahead is that we might contract ‘fatheadism’-fat between the ears can destroy us.”
12、“We want consumers to say, ‘That's ahellof product’ instead of ‘That's a hell of an ad.’”
13、“Plan thesalewhen you plan the ad.”
14、“Regardlessof the moral issue, dishonesty in advertising has proved very unprofitable.”
15、“If you can'tturnyourself into your customer, you probably shouldn't be in the ad writing business at all.”
16、“If you can't make a good ad in Chicago, you can't make one anywhere.”
17、“The competent creative mandoesnot approach his job solely in terms of making an advertisement, or a series of advertisements. He must approach it with aclearunderstandof whatotherfactors are involved in the sale of the product.”
18、“In aworldwhere nobodyseems to know what's going to happen next, the only thing to do tokeepfrom going completelynutsfromfrustrationis plain old-fashionedwork.”
19、“Curiosityaboutlife in all of its aspects, Ithink, isstillthe secret of great creative people.”
20、“Our real purpose in life is that of improving the sales effectiveness and reputation of our clients through ideas.”
21、“There is a paradise of improvement awaiting us if we searchhardenough for it.”
22、“I have learned that it pays tofightfor concepts and causes that may appear unpopular at the moment, rather than following the course of quick and easy agreement.”
23、“It is apparent that the company can't be any better orbigger than the growth of the people in it.”
24、“In this agency businesswe arepeople talking to people, and that's what we should keeprunning through our fingers.”
25、“Let's gear our advertising to sell our goods, but let's recognize also that advertising has a broad social responsibility.”
26、“If you're not fertile and imaginative andfullof wonder and curiosity, Iurgeyou tostayaway from advertising.”
27、“‘Too-bigness’ has set in when thehotpursuit of profits cuts corners on old-fashioned ethics.”
28、“A really good creative person is more interested in earnestness than in glibness and takes more satisfaction out of converting people than in ‘wowing’ them.”
29、“Ideasaloneenable a man to survive and flourish.”
30、“When a man knowsdeepin hisboneswhat is right, and keeps acting on it, he avoids thetrapof compromise-he remains incorruptible.”
31、“A company in which anyone is afraid to speak up, to differ, to be daring and original, is closing the coffin dooron itself.”
32、“Half the pleasureof getting big, I think, is tothumbyour nose at the indignity of getting dignified.”
33、“Let's continue to be known as an agency which spends more timetrying to improve its theories rather than to defend them.”
34、“Collective solutions to problemsstartwith individualhumanbeings and individual efforts.”
35、“Growingpains sometimes may seem unbearable, but believe me they are nothing compared with the pain of shrinking or the pain of standing still.”
36、“Advertising says to people, ‘Here's what we've got. Here's what it will dofor you. Here's how to get it.’”
37、“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 assemblyline.”
38、“I have learned that anyfoolcanwriteabadad, but that it takes a real genius to keep his hands off a good one.”
39、“Good advertising does not just circulate information. It penetrates the publicmindwith desires and belief.”
40、“The only creative conferenceworthadamnis one in which everybody in the room starts from thesame baseof fact, a consuming appetite for ideas no matter how wild they mayfirstappear, and a humble respect for them.”
41、“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 everbuybetter advertising than he understands or has an appetite for.”
42、“If you have the facts on your side and honest conviction in yourheart, you rarelyloseby fighting for your idea all the way."
43、“Are you blowing opportunityafteropportunity because you can't recognize acrossroadwhen you come to it?"
44、“Our business is ideas. They grow and flourishbestin an atmosphere of congenial collaboration.”
45、“It seems to usthereshould be less concern about the dimensions of a business. And considerably more concern about its heartbeat-thevalues, zestand spirit behind its physical and financial facade.”
46、“Inlooking for creative people, I amalways most interested in those who have an almostnaivecuriosity about life.”
47、“The greatest thing to be achieved in advertising, in my opinion, is believability, and nothing is more believable than the product itself.”
48、“Before you can have a share of market, you must have a share of mind.”
49、“The public does not know what it wants, and there is no sure way of finding outuntilthe idea is exposed under normal conditions of sale. If people couldtellyou in advance what they want, therewouldnever have been a wheel, a lever, much less an automobile, an airplane or a TV set.”
50、“A good ad which is not run never produces sales.”
51、“Too manyadsthat try not to go over thereader's head end up beneath his notice.”
52、“I have learned that it isfareasier to write a speech about good advertising than it is to write a good ad.”
53、“In all of our planning I like to feel that we adventurouslyliveon the fringe of the Great Creative Unknown, but if we are properly armed with facts we are always better prepared toenterit.”
54、“In my opinion, there has been only one indispensable man in the history of the world. Hisnamewas Adam.”
55、“I like to look on our own shop askindof a barefoot agency which is mentally always trying to put itself into other people's shoes-a working ranch rather than aduderanch.”
56、“We built our business not so much by getting accounts as building them.”
57、“As I have observed it, great advertising writing, either inprintor TV, is always deceptively and disarmingly simple. It has the commontouchwithout being orsounding patronizing.”
58、“I am one who believes that one of the greatest dangers of advertising is not that of misleading people, but that of boring them todeath.”
59、“The secret of all effective originality in advertising is not the creation of new andtrickywords and pictures, but one of putting familiar words and pictures into new relationships.”
60、“In this business when you start putting the emphasis on countingmoneyrather than getting out better ads and otherwise giving your clients better service, you soon learn that there is very little money to count.”
61、“The greatest saving of all is better utilization of our time. This directly affects practically every phase of the business in terms of expense and profits.”
62、“I have alwaystakentheattitudethat no account is a ‘problem account’ but that all accounts have important problems attached to them- that you canwastemore time and burn up more nervous energy by fighting a problem than by taking a positive attitude and solving it.”
63、“In learning to work and live with people, the most important thing I am coming to understand is the simple truth that ‘no one makes mistakes on purpose.’ Knowingthis should allow us to concentrate on correcting the mistake rather than making life miserable for the mistake maker. If he is the rightsort, nothing you can say or do to him will make him feel any worse about the mistake than he does already.”
64、“Agencies that create great advertising may become big agencies, but theirgoalremains the creation of great advertising.”
65、“Make it simple. Make it memorable. Make it inviting to look at. Make it fun to read.”
66、“Creative ideas flourish best in a shop which preserves some spirit offun.Nobody is in business for fun, but that does notmeanthere cannot be fun in business.”
67、“In operating a business of oursize, it is obvious that we have to be well departmentalized. This does not mean, however, that we have to be channelized.”
68、“The biggest problem of all, as I see it, is a human one--how to keep from acting big.”
69、“‘Reaching for theStars' may sound a little naive, but it is a thought in which I passionately believe; and maybethe world could use a little more naivete of that kind.”
70、“It is this spirit (Reaching for the Stars) which I think has made many of us worklonghours, which makes uscarrythe thought of our work with us wherever we go, which makes us lay aside good work for better work.”
71、“I have always felt that advertising could be something to get excited about. To take pleasure in. To regard as worthwhile, meaningful, respectable. Something to do thoughtfully and well.”
72、“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.”
73、“I listen to everybody and take notes. Particularly salesmen. They get close to people.”
74、“It's important in building our organizational machines not to exclude the dissenter, the ‘Outsider,’ the non-conformist.”
75、“It seems axiomatic that you have to make a friend before you can effectively make him a proposition.”
76、“If you are writing about baloney, don't try to make it Cornish hen, because that is the worst kind of baloney there is. Just make it darned good baloney.”
77、“The grist for our mill is still words. Words as they put thesockandsoulinto the expression of ideas.”
78、“Takea firm stand against putting expediency above principle; bluff ahead of facts.”
79、“A goodbasicselling idea, involvement and relevancy, of course, are as important as ever, but in the advertising din oftoday, unless you make yourself noticed and believed, you ain't got nothin.”
80、“These things pay off- goodtaste, a high standard of ethics, an attitude of public responsibility and low pressure.”
81、“My only warning is that growth never compromises integrity, and I regard integrity as the heart and driving force of this agency.”
82、“I have learned to practice what I call ‘constructive dissatisfaction.’”
83、“I regard a great ad as the most beautiful thing in the world.”
84、“A real idea has apowerof its own and a life of its own.”
85、“Cling like wildcats to the only realities we can swear we haveholdof- our own scared and individual integrities.”
86、“Steep yourself in your subject, work like hell, and love, honorandobeyyour hunches.”
87、“Whatever success I have enjoyed, I attribute almost entirely to a deep personalsenseof responsibility to our clients and to the job at hand, with a passion for thoroughness, often at considerable personal sacrifice, and an unyielding intolerance of sloppy thinking, sloppy work and almost-good-enoughjobs.”
88、“Good advertising is ahappywedding of words and pictures, not a contest between them.”
89、“I believe that superior creative work always has been, is, and always will be thehubof the wheel in any successful agency.”
90、“I look for craftsmen in words and pictures who so completely understand good creative masonry and are so skilled in it, that when they lay a brick out of place they do it on purpose.”
91、“...In itsperformance, advertising is not a soloist. It is a member of an ensemble of all those activities that can be classified under the general head of marketing, and it must do its part in harmony with them if the end result is to be good.”
92、“The only sound basis of a personal service relationship is mutual confidence and respect. Unless that exists at the start, the account will eventually represent loss and disappointment.”
93、“Friction makes sparks and sparks start great creative conflagrations.”
94、“Promises must be kept, deadlines met, commitments honored; not just for the sake of old-fashioned morality, but because we become what we do (orfailto do), and character is simply the sum of our performances.”
95、“Advertising cannot performmagicfor an unwanted or undesirable product. But a skilled advertising man can present previously overlooked virtues in a product in a way that will make people reach for it.”
96、“Plan ahead but maintain flexibility.”
97、“We should constantly remind ourselves that the most productive use of our own time offers the greatest opportunity for increased income for us as individuals and for better earnings for our company.”
98、“This is as good a time as any to start examining ourselves for any of those tell-tale signs of success that lead to inner rot. Those signs are complacency... coasting... bureaucracy.”
99、“You can grow up in the advertising business, but you don't have to grow old in it.”
100、“I am often asked how I got into this business. I didn't. The business got into me.”
Leo Burnett，1891—1971
萬寶路廣告
When to take my name off the door
