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

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
Artist
Emerged
Never
Formula
Formulas
Breaks
Memorable
Rules
Design
Break

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If your advertising goes unnoticed, everything else is academic!
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Good advertising does not just circulate information. It penetrates the public mind with desires and belief.
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Today's smartest advertising style is tomorrow's corn.
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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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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.
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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?
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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.
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Properly practiced creativity can make one ad do the work of ten.
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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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Advertising doesn't create a product advantage. It can only convey it.
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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.
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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.
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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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An idea can turn to dust or magic, depending on the talent that rubs against it.
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Nobody counts the number of ads you run they just remember the impression you make.
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The most powerful element in advertising is the truth.
William Bernbach
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It may well be that creativity is the last unfair advantage we're legally allowed to take over our competitors.
William Bernbach
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I warn you against believing that advertising is a science.
William Bernbach
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Imitation can be commercial suicide.
William Bernbach
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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