Bernbach Quotes & Sayings

I warn you against believing that advertising is a science. — William Bernbach

I came into advertising in 1961. I had been turned down for jobs on the Ford account in the late Fifties as 'not their type.' If it hadn't been for Bill Bernbach, I would now be sitting in some luncheonette, continuing my life as a messenger. — Jerry Della Femina

Rules are what the artist breaks; the memorable never emerged from a formula. — William Bernbach

Word of mouth is the best medium of all. — William Bernbach

The heart of creativity is discipline. — William Bernbach

Forget words like 'hard sell' and 'soft sell.' That will only confuse you. Just be sure your advertising is saying something with substance, something that will inform and serve the consumer, and be sure you're saying it like it's never been said before. — William Bernbach

It is insight into human nature that is the key to the communicator's skill. For whereas the writer is concerned with what he puts into his writings, the communicator is concerned with what the reader gets out of it. He therefore becomes a student of how people read or listen. — William Bernbach

Today's smartest advertising style is tomorrow's corn. — William Bernbach

Nobody counts the number of ads you run; they just remember the impression you make. — William Bernbach

You can say the right thing about a product and nobody will listen. You've got to say it in such a way that people will feel it in their gut. Because if they don't feel it, nothing will happen. — William Bernbach

The truth isn't the truth until people believe you, and they can't believe you if they don't know what you're saying, and they can't know what you're saying if they don't listen to you, and they won't listen to you if you're not interesting, and you won't be interesting unless you say things imaginatively, originally, freshly. — William Bernbach

We don't ask research to do what it was never meant to do, and that is to get an idea. — William Bernbach

The most powerful element in advertising is the truth. — William Bernbach

Logic and over-analysis can immobilise and sterilize an idea. It's like love. The more you analyse it, the more it disappears. — William Bernbach

Advertising doesn't create a product advantage. It can only convey it. — William Bernbach

Persuasion is not a science but an art — William Bernbach

You cannot sell a man who isn't listening; word of mouth is the best medium of all; and dullness won't sell your product, but neither will irrelevant brilliance. — William Bernbach

The difference between the forgettable and the enduring is artistry. — William Bernbach

Doyle Dane Bernbach was a great, great agency when I got there. There was an arrogance that everyone had, but it was a closed club. I was a guy who worked a little differently. Edgier. More punch-in-the-mouth. — George Lois

If your advertising goes unnoticed, everything else is academic. — William Bernbach

We are so busy measuring public opinion that we forget we can mold it. We are so busy listening to statistics we forget we can create them. — William Bernbach

In this very real world, good doesn't drive out evil. Evil doesn't drive out good. But the energetic displaces the passive. — William Bernbach

Our job is to bring the dead facts to life. — William Bernbach

For the Flower to blossom, you need the right soil as well as the right seed. The same is true to cultivate good thinking. — William Bernbach

It may well be that creativity is the last unfair advantage we're legally allowed to take over our competitors. — William Bernbach

Most of the people in advertising now - mention Bill Bernbach to them, they don't know. — Jerry Della Femina

A principle isn't a principle until it costs you something. — William Bernbach

Let us prove to the world that good taste, good art, and good writing can be good selling. — William Bernbach

The G.O.P. and the conservative establishment in America are on the verge of a reckoning. — JP Bernbach

An idea can turn to dust or magic, depending on the talent that rubs against it. — William Bernbach

Research can trap you into the past. — William Bernbach

Find the simple story in the product, and present it in an articulate and intelligent, persuasive way. — William Bernbach

Because an appeal makes logical sense is no guarantee that it will work. — William Bernbach

Our job is to sell our clients' merchandise ... not ourselves. Our job is to kill the cleverness that makes us shine instead of the product. Our job is to simplify, to tear away the unrelated, to pluck out the weeds that are smothering the product message. — William Bernbach

It's not just what you say that stirs people. It's the way that you say it. — William Bernbach

Never do anything yourself that you can hire someone else to do, especially if they can do it better. — William Bernbach

You have to live with your product, you have to know it through and through, you have to look at it, understand it, love it then, and only then, you can crystallize in one clear thought, one single theme, what must be conveyed about the product to the consumer. — William Bernbach

Don't confuse good taste with the absence of taste. — William Bernbach

Is creativity some obscure, esoteric art form? Not on your life. It's the most practical thing a business-man can employ. — William Bernbach

Imitation can be commercial suicide. — William Bernbach

The real giants have always been poets, men who jumped from facts into the realm of imagination and ideas. — William Bernbach

Advertising is fundamentally persuasion and persuasion happens to be not a science, but an art. — William Bernbach

There is no such thing as a good or bad ad in isolation. What is good at one moment is bad at another. Research can trap you into the past. — William Bernbach

The world has progressed to the point where it's most powerful force is public opinion. And I believe that in this world it is not the great book or epic play, as once was the case, that will shape that opinion, but those who understand mass media and the techniques of mass persuasion ... We must not just believe in what we sell. We must sell what we believe in. And we must pour a vast energy into those causes. — William Bernbach

Properly practiced creativity must result in greater sales more economically achieved. Properly practiced creativity can lift your claims out of the swamp of sameness and make them accepted, believed, persuasive, urgent. — William Bernbach

All of us who professionally use the mass media are the shapers of society. We can vulgarise that society. We can brutalise it. Or we can help lift it onto a higher level. — William Bernbach

Adapt your techniques to an idea, not an idea to your techniques. — William Bernbach

A great ad campaign will make a bad product fail faster. It will get more people to know it's bad. — William Bernbach

Properly practiced creativity can make one ad do the work of ten. — William Bernbach

No matter how skillful you are, you can't invent a product advantage that doesn't exist. And if you do, and it's just a gimmick, it's going to fall apart anyway. — William Bernbach

The creative man with an insight into human nature, with the artistry to touch and move people, will succeed. Without them he will fail. — William Bernbach

Those who are going to be in business tomorrow are those who understand that the future, as always, belongs to the brave. — William Bernbach

Nothing is so powerful as an insight into human nature ... what compulsions drive a man, what instincts dominate his action. If you know these things abut a person, you can touch him at the core of his being. — William Bernbach

I'm sounding like an old fart talking about how bad advertising is today, but it's true. Advertising sucks. Guys like me and Bob Gage and certainly Bill Bernbach and two or three other guys, we exemplified and led the creative revolution. — George Lois

Advertising is the art of persuasion. — William Bernbach

If you stand for something, you will always find some people for you and some people against you. If you stand for nothing, you will find nobody against you, and nobody for you. — William Bernbach

Just because your ad looks good is no insurance that it will get looked at. How many people do you know who are impeccably groomed ... but dull? — William Bernbach