Most good copywriters’, says William Maynard of the Bates agency, ‘fall into two categories. Poets. And killers. - David Ogilvy

Your alcoholics may include some of your brightest stars. The problem is to identify them, protected as they always are by their secretaries and their colleagues. Invite the alcoholic’s wife to join you in a surprise confrontation with her husband. Start by telling him that all present are devoted to him. Then say how worried you are about his drinking. His wife and his children are about to leave him, and you are about to fire him – unless he does what you ask. A reservation has been made for him to enter a treatment center that very day. Most alcoholics agree to go. It takes a week for the center to dry them out, and another four weeks to rehabilitate them. On returning home, they must go to daily meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous for at least a year. This procedure works in about 60 per cent of cases. I have seen it salvage some valuable people of both sexes. If you would like further advice on the subject, consult the nearest chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous.

In my experience, committees can criticize, but they cannot create. ‘Search the parks in all your cities You’ll find no statues of committees.

Most headlines are set too big to be legible in the magazines or newspapers. Never approve a layout until you have seen it pasted into the magazine or newspaper for which it is destined. If you pin and appraise them from fifteen feet, you will produce posters.