Howard Luck Gossage, dubbed The Socrates of San Francisco, believed that "most advertising in existence is, in itself, a detriment to the industry."

"Trying to explain responsibility to advertising men
is like trying to convince an eight-year-old that sexual
intercourse is more fun than a chocolate ice cream cone."
Howard Luck Gossage; 1917-1969

Howard Luck Gossage, an advertising man who hated advertising, had a vision of what it should be. He believed that too many people who create advertising rely on repetition of an essentially dull message .

"There is only so much fertilizer one ought to use," Gossage observed, "but people tend to lay it on so thick that it begins to obliterate the crop it was supposed to nurture... At which point it starts to attract flies, the neighbours complain and the stench is unbearable!"

"Is advertising worth saving? From an economic point of view, I don't think that most of it is. From an aesthetic point of view, I'm damn sure it's not; it is thoughtless, boring and there is simply too much of it."

Marketing legend David Ogilvy described Gossage as "the most articulate rebel in the advertising business."

One year after his death, Gossage was posthumously inducted into the Advertising Copywriters Hall of Fame.

Thirty four years after his death, a landmark study by the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) verifies that the fertilizer is, indeed, still obliterating the crop.