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

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
Good
Confuse
Absence
Taste

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Today's smartest advertising style is tomorrow's corn.
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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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Advertising is the art of persuasion.
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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.
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Those who are going to be in business tomorrow are those who understand that the future, as always, belongs to the brave.
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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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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.
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It's not just what you say that stirs people. It's the way that you say it.
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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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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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Is creativity some obscure, esoteric art form? Not on your life. It's the most practical thing a business-man can employ.
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Imitation can be commercial suicide.
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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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The difference between the forgettable and the enduring is artistry.
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In communications, familiarity breeds apathy.
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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.
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In this very real world, good doesn't drive out evil. Evil doesn't drive out good. But the energetic displaces the passive.
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I warn you against believing that advertising is a science.
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The heart of creativity is discipline.
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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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