Life & Wisdom Quote by Mason Cooley

Cooley slices the ad business into two moral economies: the blunt transaction and the soft seduction. "Buy" is the honest brutality of mass-market salesmanship, the kind that treats the audience like a ledger entry. "Courts us", though, is the giveaway. Expensive advertising doesn’t just sell a product; it stages a relationship, flattering the consumer into thinking they arrived at desire on their own. The luxury is not only in production budgets and celebrity casting, but in the time and craft spent building plausibly deniable persuasion.

The line works because it names what viewers often feel but can’t quite articulate: high-end ads rarely argue. They insinuate. They speak in atmosphere, archetype, and aspiration - a fragrance ad that sells a life, a car ad that sells competence, a watch ad that sells permanence. "Hints and images" signals a shift from information to inference: the viewer completes the pitch inside their own head, which makes the conclusion feel personal rather than purchased.

Cooley, writing from a late-20th-century literary perch, is also diagnosing status. Only certain brands can afford to avoid the imperative and trade in suggestion; understatement becomes a class marker. The subtext is lightly cynical: when advertising is most refined, it’s often least accountable. If it only "hints", it can’t be pinned down for promising anything concrete. The consumer isn’t commanded; they’re wooed - and that’s the more expensive trick.