Success Quote by Morris Hite

Morris Hite’s line is a cold shower for anyone who wants advertising to be art first and commerce second. It rejects the seductive fantasy that the best ad is the one people admire. Admiration is cheap; action is the metric. The point isn’t to win a moment of cultural applause but to plant a small, practical impulse that survives long enough to reach the checkout line.

The subtext is almost antagonistic toward “cleverness” as an end in itself. A clever ad can become a self-contained performance, rewarding the audience for noticing the trick while quietly letting the product slip out the back door. Hite is warning that novelty and wit can function like camouflage: they signal sophistication, but they can also short-circuit persuasion by shifting attention from need to spectacle. His ideal response is deliberately unglamorous: “tomorrow,” “shopping,” “buy one.” It’s everyday behavior, not brand poetry.

Context matters: this is a businessman’s ethic, not a copywriter’s love letter. It echoes the hard-nosed, direct-response tradition where results are countable and sentimentality is a liability. Even the phrasing “I believe I’ll buy one” is telling - it frames purchasing as a calm, self-authored decision rather than manipulation. That’s how effective advertising often works: it doesn’t feel like surrender. It feels like your own idea, arriving at exactly the moment you’re ready to spend.