Quote

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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William Bernbach
Age: 71 †
Born: 1911
Born: August 13
Died: 1982
Died: October 2
Art Director
Economist
Entrepreneur
The Bronx
New York City
Jobs
Message
Cleverness
Away
Product
Simplify
Makes
Shining
Tear
Messages
Clients
Smothering
Kill
Shine
Unrelated
Products
Weed
Merchandise
Tears
Sell
Pluck
Instead
Sells
Weeds

More quotes by William Bernbach

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In communications, familiarity breeds apathy.
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Logic and over-analysis can immobilise and sterilize an idea. It's like love. The more you analyse it, the more it disappears.
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Never do anything yourself that you can hire someone else to do, especially if they can do it better.
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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.
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A great ad campaign will make a bad product fail faster. It will get more people to know it's bad.
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Persuasion is not a science but an art
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Nobody counts the number of ads you run they just remember the impression you make.
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Properly practiced creativity can make one ad do the work of ten.
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An idea can turn to dust or magic, depending on the talent that rubs against it.
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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.
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It may well be that creativity is the last unfair advantage we're legally allowed to take over our competitors.
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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.
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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.
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Imitation can be commercial suicide.
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Creativity is the most practical thing a businessman can employ.
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Research can trap you into the past.
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Adapt your techniques to an idea, not an idea to your techniques.
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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
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Let us prove to the world that good taste, good art, and good writing can be good selling.
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Is creativity some obscure, esoteric art form? Not on your life. It's the most practical thing a business-man can employ.
William Bernbach