Quote

Good advertising does not just circulate information. It penetrates the public mind with desires and belief.

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
Public
Belief
Circulate
Desire
Penetrates
Doe
Penetrate
Mind
Marketing
Good
Desires
Advertising
Information

More quotes by William Bernbach

Image
Imitation can be commercial suicide.
William Bernbach
Image
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.
William Bernbach
Image
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?
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
Is creativity some obscure, esoteric art form? Not on your life. It's the most practical thing a business-man can employ.
William Bernbach
Image
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.
William Bernbach
Image
Logic and over-analysis can immobilise and sterilize an idea. It's like love. The more you analyse it, the more it disappears.
William Bernbach
Image
Those who are going to be in business tomorrow are those who understand that the future, as always, belongs to the brave.
William Bernbach
Image
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
Image
It's not just what you say that stirs people. It's the way that you say it.
William Bernbach
Image
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
Image
The real giants have always been poets, men who jumped from facts into the realm of imagination and ideas.
William Bernbach
Image
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
Image
Nothing is so powerful as an insight into human nature... what compulsions drive a man, what instincts dominate his action. If you know these things abut a person, you can touch him at the core of his being.
William Bernbach
Image
Don't confuse good taste with the absence of taste.
William Bernbach
Image
Today's smartest advertising style is tomorrow's corn.
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
The difference between the forgettable and the enduring is artistry.
William Bernbach
Image
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
Image
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.
William Bernbach