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Consumers

1. Food comes first, then morals.

Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) German playwright and poet. The Threepenny Opera (1928)

 

2. There is enough in the world for everyone’s need, but not for everyone’s greed.

Frank Buckman (1878-1961) U.S. evangelist. Remaking the World (1947)

 

3. Make no mistake: Customers are in control today.

Anne Busquet (b.1951?) U.S. president of American Express Relationship Services. “Next Stop-The 21st Century,” Fast Company (Lucy McCauley; 1999)

 

4. Many people believe that we have entered the age of the Internet. Actually, it’s more accurate to say that we’re living in the age of the customer.

Anne Busquet (b.1951?) U.S. president of American Express Relationship Services. “Next Stop-The 21st Century,” Fast Company (Lucy McCauley; 1999)

 

5. Man wants but little here below but likes that little good-and not too long in coming.

Samuel Butler (1835-1902) British writer. Further Extracts from the Notebooks (A. Bartholomew, ed.; 1934)

 

6. Arguably the only goods people need these days are food and nappies.

Terence Conran (b.1931) British business executive, retailer, and founder of Habitat. Quoted in Observer (London) (February 21, 1988)

 

7. The consumer is the most important part of the production line.

  1. Edwards Deming (1900-93) U.S. consultant and author. Out of the Crisis (1992)

 

8. The consumer dictates whether we’re in business or not.

Niall Fitzgerald (b.1945) British C.E.O. of Unilever and president of the Advertising Association. Marketing (June 2000)

 

9. With every decision we make, the last question we ask is what does the consumer think of this.

Niall Fitzgerald (b.1945) British C.E.O. of Unilever and president of the Advertising Association. Marketing (June 2000)

 

10. You could not have got more knowledge about detergents anywhere in the world…I asked, could anyone who has washed their own clothes in the past three months put their hands up. Not one hand went up.

Niall Fitzgerald (b.1945) British C.E.O. of Unilever and president of the Advertising Association. Referring to Unilever’s problems with a detergent. Marketing (June 2000)

 

11. Teenagers travel in droves, packs, swarms. To the librarian, they’re a gaggle of geese. To the cook, they’re a big beautiful exaltation of larks, all lovely and loose and jingly.

Bernice Fitz-Gibbon (1895?-1982) U.S. advertising executive. New York Times (1960)

 

12. The individual serves the industrial system not by supplying it with savings and the resulting capital; he serves it by consuming its products.

  1. K. Galbraith (b.1908) U.S. economist and diplomat. The New Industrial State (1967)

 

13. What I’m learning from customers is that there is an excess of technology out there.

Lou Gerstner (b.1942) U.S. chairman and C.E.O. of IBM. Fortune (1993)

 

14. Business is about supplying the needs and desires of human society and is therefore about human goods and the best means to provide them.

Damian Grace (b.1950) Australian academic. Australian Problems and Cases (1995)

 

15. Consumers resent it when a company presumes to judge the quality of its products on their behalf.

Andrew S. Grove (b.1936) U.S. entrepreneur, author, and chairman of Intel Corporation. Fortune (May 1995)

 

16. People want economy and they will pay any price to get it.

Lee Iacocca (b.1924) U.S. president of Ford Motor Company, chairman and C.E.O. of Chrysler Corporation. New York Times (1974)

 

17. In a consumer society there are inevitably two kinds of slaves: the prisoners of addiction and the prisoners of envy.

Ivan Illich (1926-2002) U.S. priest and educator. Tools for Conviviality (1973)

 

18. Customers do not care about industry boundaries; they want service and convenience.

Peter G. W. Keen (b.1930) U.S. information technology consultant. “Basic Change,” The Process Edge (1999)

 

19. New consumers are never-satisfied consumers.

Regis McKenna (b.1939) U.S. marketing entrepreneur and chairman of the McKenna Group. Relationship Marketing (1991)

 

20. Advertising is an environmental striptease for a world of abundance.

Marshall McLuhan (1911-80) Canadian sociologist and author. Quoted in Subliminal Seduction: Ad Media’s Manipulation of a Not So Innocent America (Wilson Bryan Key; 1974)

 

21. The car, the furniture, the wife, the children-everything has to be disposable. Because you see, the main thing today is shopping.

Arthur Miller (b.1915) U.S. dramatist. The Price (1968)

 

22. Unsafe at Any Speed

Ralph Nader (b.1934) U.S. lawyer and consumer-rights campaigner. Book title, concerned with the automotive industry, and referring to the Chevy Corvair. Unsafe at Any Speed (1965)

 

23. Our gadget-filled paradise suspended in a hell of insecurity.

Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971) U.S. theologian. Pious and Secular America (1957)

 

24. The consumer isn’t a moron; she is your wife.

David Ogilvy (1911-99) British advertising executive, founder and chairman of Ogilvy & Mather. Confessions of an Advertising Man (1963)

 

25. Man is the only creature that consumes without producing.

George Orwell (1903-50) British novelist, critic, and essayist. Animal Form (1945)

 

26. The most exciting thing happening in business is the rise of vigilante consumers.

Anita Roddick (b.1942) British entrepreneur and founder of The Body Shop. Interview, Marketing Week (February 24, 2000)

 

27. On the whole businesses do not listen to the consumer. Consumers have not been told effectively enough that they have huge power and that purchasing and shopping involve a moral choice.

Anita Roddick (b.1942) British entrepreneur and founder of The Body Shop. Interview, Share International (April 1998)

 

28. No other man-made device since the shields and lances of ancient knights fulfills a man’s ego like an automobile.

William Rootes (1894-1964) British car manufacturer. Speech (1958)

 

29. The consumer, so it is said, is the king…each is a voter who uses his money as votes to get the things done that he wants done.

Paul Samuelson (b.1915) U.S. economist and winner of the 1970 Nobel Prize in Economics. Economics (1970)

 

30. Trying to get consumers to re-evaluate their behavior is what I enjoy most.

Ric Simcock (b.1965) British advertising executive. Marketing (September 2000)

 

31. Consumption is the sole end and purpose of production; and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer.

Adam Smith (1723-90) British economist and philosopher. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776)

 

32. Prosumers.

Alvin Toffler (b.1928) U.S. social commentator. Meaning consumers who contribute directly to product development. The Third Wave (1980)

 

33. While Chinese youth may desire the same clothing and popular music as the West, the core values are very resistant to change.

Rosalie L. Tung (b.1948) Canadian academic and business educator. International Management in China: Cross-cultural Issues (Jan Selmer ed.; 1998)

 

34. America is a vast conspiracy to make you happy.

John Updike (b.1932) U.S. novelist and critic. Problems (1980)

 

35. In the kingdom of consumption the citizen is king…The dictatorship of consumer goods has finally destroyed the barriers of blood, lineage, and race.

Raoul Vaneigem (b.1934) Belgian philosopher. The Revolution of Everyday Life (1967)

 

36. Work to survive, survive by consuming, survive to consume: the hellish cycle is complete.

Raoul Vaneigem (b.1934) Belgian philosopher. The Revolution of Everyday Life (1967)

 

37. Conspicuous consumption of valuable goods is a measure of reputability to the gentlemen of leisure.

Thorsten Veblen (1857-1929) U.S. economist and social scientist. The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899)

 

38. The superior gratification derived from the use and contemplation of costly and supposedly beautiful products is, commonly, in great measure a gratification of our sense of costliness masquerading under the name of beauty.

Thorsten Veblen (1857-1929) U.S. economist and social scientist. The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899)

 

39. I probably spend some time once a month listening in on calls or talking to customers. I encourage my executives to do the same.

Lillian Vernon (b.1927) U.S. entrepreneur and C.E.O. of Lillian Vernon Corporation. “My Biggest Mistake,” Inc. (1999)

 

40. There are so many flukes in the catalog industry that you have to constantly assess what your customers want and need.

Lillian Vernon (b.1927) U.S. entrepreneur and C.E.O. of Lillian Vernon Corporation. “My Biggest Mistake,” Inc. (1999)

 

41. Buying is much more American than thinking and I’m as American as they come.

Andy Warhol (1928-87) U.S. artist and producer. The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (from A to B and Back Again) (1975)

 

42. What’s great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest.

Andy Warhol (1928-87) U.S. artist and producer. The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (from A to B and Back Again) (1975)

 

43. The Internet has certainly brought us face to face with the consumer. And the consumer has everything to gain here.

Ann Winblad (b.1953) U.S. venture capitalist. www.womenswire.com (Soledad O’Brien; 2000)