William Bernbach Quotes

There are a lot of great technicians in advertising. And unfortunately they talk the best game. They know all the rules. They can tell you that people in an ad will get you greater readership. They can tell you that a sentence should be this short or that long. They can tell you that body copy should be broken up for easier reading. They can give you fact after fact after fact. They are the scientists of advertising. But there's one little rub. Advertising is fundamentally persuasion and persuasion happens to be not a science, but an art.

Today's smartest advertising style is tomorrow's corn.

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

Don't confuse good taste with the absence of taste.

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.

I warn you against believing that advertising is a science.

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

Persuasion is not a science but an art

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.

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

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

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

The heart of creativity is discipline.

Adapt your techniques to an idea, not an idea to your techniques.

Advertising is the art of persuasion.

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.

Word of mouth is the best medium of all.

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

The most powerful element in advertising is the truth.

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.

If your advertising goes unnoticed, everything else is academic!

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

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.

Creativity is the most practical thing a businessman can employ.

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.

In communications, familiarity breeds apathy.

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

Our job is to bring the dead facts to life.

Imitation can be commercial suicide.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Research can trap you into the past.

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

The difference between the forgettable and the enduring is artistry.

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.

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?

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

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

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

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

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

In advertising, not to be different is virtually suicidal.

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.