34 Consumer Quotes

Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all 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.

Advertising is a racket, like the movies and the brokerage business. You cannot be honest without admitting that its constructive contribution to humanity is exactly minus zero.

It is not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money. It is the customer who pays the wages.

Competition is not only the basis of protection to the consumer, but is the incentive to progress.

Again, your challenge is not just to improve. It is to break the service paradigm in your industry or market so that customers aren't just satisfied, they're so shocked that they tell strangers on the street how good you are.

I have been in the entertainment business some forty-three years, and I have never said anything detrimental or anything that might be construed as belittling any race or religion. I would be a sucker to do so because you can't insult the customers.

'... there are now unmistakeable signs of a trend in favor of superior products at premium prices. The consumer is not a moron, she is your wife.'

'The consumer isn't a moron; she is your wife. You insult her intelligence if you assume that a mere slogan and a few vapid adjectives will persuade her to buy anything. She wants all the information you can give her.'

'Once upon a time I was riding on the top of a First Avenue bus, when I heard a mythical housewife say to another, 'Molly, my dear, I would have bought that new brand of toilet soap if only they hadn't set the body copy in ten point Garamond.' Don't you believe it. What really decides consumers to buy or not to buy is the content of your advertising, not its form.'

It has been shown that, in contrast to everything which classical national economy has hitherto taught, not the producer but the consumer is the ruling factor in economic life.

On the same bill and on the same side of it there should not be two charges for the same thing.

'The culture industry not so much adapts to the reactions of its customers as it counterfeits them.'

Is this chicken, what I have, or is this fish? I know it's tuna, but it: it says 'Chicken of the Sea'.

For almost 70 years the life insurance industry has been a smug sacred cow feeding the public a steady line of sacred bull.

We wish to control big business so as to secure among other things good wages for the wage-workers and reasonable prices for the consumers. Wherever in any business the prosperity of the businessman is obtained by lowering the wages of his workmen and charging an excessive price to the consumers we wish to interfere and stop such practices. We will not submit to that kind of prosperity any more than we will submit to prosperity obtained by swindling investors or getting unfair advantages over business rivals.

Profits are the driving force of the market economy. The greater the profits, the better the needs of the consumers are supplied.

I like vending machines 'cuz snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it so that it achieves it's maximum flavor potential.

The manufacturer does not produce shoes because he knows that Jones needs them. He produces because he knows that dozens of traders will buy certain numbers at various prices because they (or rather the retailer they serve) know that thousands of Joneses, whom the manufacturer does not know, want to buy them.

What happened is the music listener has become much more of a connoisseur and a king of his own destiny. You can no longer shove an album down their throats and say, 'Here's 15 songs, four of them are good, you know. Spend 20 dollars on this CD.' It's not going to happen. That's what has taken the music industry down.

When I did 'Unwrapped' -- that's one of my favorite albums I've ever done in my life -- I love it when someone listens to the whole album. But I would rather them be able to buy some songs that they like, [rather] than not buy the album at all . . . . You can't fight technology. You can't fight, you know, the consumer.

When pitching a popular product, he is known to say, 'People are ordering and re-re-re-ordering...'

If the automobile had followed the same development cycle as the computer, a Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get a million miles per gallon, and explode once a year, killing everyone inside.

Let's say, for instance, I'm out of cheese. And then I'll think, oh, but what if I go to the store and they're out of cheese? I'd be like, 'How can you be out of cheese?' 'What do you mean 'How can we be out of cheese?' You're out of cheese. People run out of cheese.' Then I'd be like, 'Yeah, but you're a store. You should have cheese stocked up in the back for people like me coming in looking for cheese.' And that's when they send the manager over, who thinks he's so cool for being the manager 'cause his picture's framed in the front of the store 'cause he's the manager, you know. And he'd be like, 'What seems to be the problem, ma'am?' Which to me is so condescending, like 'little lady.' I'd be like, 'The little lady's problem.:' He'd be like, 'Who's the little lady?' I'd be like, 'Shut up and listen to me. You're out of cheese and I want some.' And, he's like, 'Well, how about some cottage cheese?' Like he's going to negotiate the situation, he's a diplomat because he's the manager. And I'd be like, 'I don't want cottage cheese; I want cheddar cheese. Sharp cheddar cheese is what I came in for. Sharp cheddar cheese and cottage cheese are not the same things. Just 'cause they have the name cheese in the title doesn't make it a cheese at all. That'd be like going into a musical instrument store and saying 'I'd like to buy a trumpet,' and them saying 'I'm sorry, we're all out of trumpets, but would you like a shoehorn?' See, that's not the same thing, is it, Mr. Manager?' ('Thank you for the shoe horn,' you know.) And he starts getting all nervous and everything, because a crowd has formed and he starts feeling humiliated because they're all sitting around mumbling 'What seems to be the problem?,' I don't know, she wants some cheese.' And, so, um, he just slaps me right across the face. And, umm, so that's when Skip, the part time guy who works there, who hates the manager 'cause he thinks so cool for being the manager and treats Skip like shit because he's just the part time guy. And Skip's going to quit in the fall and go back to school anyway. He doesn't even need the money; he's from a wealthy family. He's just doing it for the experience because his family wants him to work one summer. And, so anyway, so, he takes the hose, and he goes to spray the manager right in the eye, right, and so, but that's when he's leaning down to pick the cottage cheese, so he misses him and he gets this old woman who's standing right behind him, and she's there picking out an avocado, because the older you are the less you eat and she all she wants is the avocado. So she screams out, 'my eye, I've been sprayed in the eye with a produce hose.' And so then that's when her nephew who's visiting from Austin Texas is two aisles over buying tortilla chips because he thinks they're going to have guacamole. Little does he know it's one avocado. And so, he starts running 'I'll help you, aunt so and so,' running, and then when he's running down the aisle when he slips on some water from the produce hose, breaks his leg, breaks his arm, bruises two ribs right there: gets a stitch put in his cheekbone, just one, but still, it's a stitch. Chaos breaks out and it's all over Hard Copy and Entertainment Tonight and Access Hollywood: 'Lesbian Demands Cheese, Causes Riot.' And I'm like, 'I didn't even want the cheese.' You know?

The commodity is first of all, an external object, a thing which through its qualities satisfies human needs of whatever kind. The nature of these needs, whether they arise, for example, from the stomach, or the imagination, makes no difference. Nor does it matter here how the thing satisfies man's need, whether directly as a means of subsistence, i.e. an object of consumption, or indirectly as a means of production

The Altadena Dairy Corporation of America needs to make it known that they're making a sharp Vermont chedder than makes people bleed from the butt and think they've been sleep-raped.

I just feel bad for all the kids who are forced to buy their music from big chain stores and have to have the edited music

Travellers, George, must pay in all places: the only difference is, that in good inns, you pay dearly for your luxuries, and in bad inns you are fleeced and starved.