William Bernbach Quotes

William Bernbach (25)

Birth:	13th August, 1911
Death:	2nd October, 1982
Nationality:	American
Profession:	Advertising Designer

Related Authors

• Jay Chiat
• William Bernbach

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Today's Anniversary - 20th May

Births

• 1917 - David C. McClelland
• 1942 - Lynn Davies
• 1978 - Sasha Azevedo
• 1915 - Moshe Dayan
• 1949 - Nick Rahall

Deaths

• 2005 - Paul Ricoeur
• 1930 - Henry Flagler
• 2008 - Dakin Williams
• 1956 - Max Beerbohm
• 1506 - Christopher Columbus

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

  William Bernbach

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  Tags in Impression, Ad

• Properly practiced creativity can make one ad do the work of ten.

  William Bernbach

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  Tags in Properly, Creativity

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

  William Bernbach

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  Tags in Guarantee, Logical

• Today’s smartest advertising style is tomorrow’s corn.

  William Bernbach

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  Tags in Tomorrow, Style

• 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

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  Tags in Simplify, Weed

• 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

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  Tags in Gimmick, Skillful

• I warn you against believing that advertising is a science.

  William Bernbach

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  Tags in Believing, Warn

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Persuasive, Properly

• 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

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  Tags in Research, Trap

• Our job is to bring the dead facts to life.

  William Bernbach

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  Tags in Dead, Facts

• 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

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  Tags in Right Thing, Gut

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

  William Bernbach

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  Tags in Ad, Bad

• Word of mouth is the best medium of all.

  William Bernbach

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  Tags in Medium, Word

• The most powerful element in advertising is the truth.

  William Bernbach

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  Tags in Element, Powerful

• We don’t ask research to do what it was never meant to do, and that is to get an idea.

  William Bernbach

  Tags in Research, Meant

• Advertising doesn’t create a product advantage. It can only convey it.

  William Bernbach

  Tags in Convey, Advertising

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

  William Bernbach

  Tags in Depending, Rubs

• 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

  Tags in Passive

• 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

  Tags in Puts, Communicator

• Advertising isn’t a science. It’s persuasion. And persuasion is an art.

  William Bernbach

  Tags in Advertising