Quote

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

William Bernbach

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

William Bernbach
Age: 71 †
Born: 1911
Born: August 13
Died: 1982
Died: October 2
Art Director
Economist
Entrepreneur
The Bronx
New York City
Persuasion
Fundamentally
Advertising
Business
Science
Art
Happens

More quotes by William Bernbach

Image
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
Image
The heart of creativity is discipline.
William Bernbach
Image
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
Image
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
Image
A principle isn't a principle until it costs you something.
William Bernbach
Image
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
Image
Advertising is the art of persuasion.
William Bernbach
Image
Our job is to bring the dead facts to life.
William Bernbach
Image
Good advertising does not just circulate information. It penetrates the public mind with desires and belief.
William Bernbach
Image
If your advertising goes unnoticed, everything else is academic!
William Bernbach
Image
Properly practiced creativity can make one ad do the work of ten.
William Bernbach
Image
Today's smartest advertising style is tomorrow's corn.
William Bernbach
Image
Research can trap you into the past.
William Bernbach
Image
An idea can turn to dust or magic, depending on the talent that rubs against it.
William Bernbach
Image
In advertising, not to be different is virtually suicidal.
William Bernbach
Image
The most powerful element in advertising is the truth.
William Bernbach
Image
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
Image
I warn you against believing that advertising is a science.
William Bernbach
Image
It's not just what you say that stirs people. It's the way that you say it.
William Bernbach
Image
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