William Bernbach Quotes

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

In advertising, not to be different is virtually suicidal.

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

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

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.

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?

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

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.

Word of mouth is the best medium of all.

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

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.

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

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

If your advertising goes unnoticed, everything else is academic!

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

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.

The most powerful element in advertising is the truth.

The difference between the forgettable and the enduring is artistry.

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

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.

Advertising is the art of persuasion.

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.

In communications, familiarity breeds apathy.

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

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

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

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

Our job is to bring the dead facts to life.

The heart of creativity is discipline.

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

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

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.

Research can trap you into the past.

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

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

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

I warn you against believing that advertising is a science.

Persuasion is not a science but an art

Creativity is the most practical thing a businessman can employ.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Imitation can be commercial suicide.