Bill Bernbach - Advertising Quotes

13 Sourced Quotes

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In advertising not to be different is virtually suicidal.

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

Bill Bernbach
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.

Bill Bernbach
Advertising doesn't create a product advantage. It can only convey it.

Bill Bernbach
Advertising isn't a science. It's persuasion. And persuasion is an art.

Bill Bernbach
We think we will never know as much about a product as a client. After all, he sleeps and breathes his product. He's built it. He's lived with it most of his life. We couldn't possible know as much about it as he does. By the same token, we firmly believe that he can't know as much about advertising. Because we live and breathe that all day long.

Bill Bernbach
However much we would like advertising to be a science - because life would be simpler that way - the fact is that it is not. It is a subtle, ever-changing art, defying formularization, flowering on freshness and withering on imitation; where what was effective one day, for that very reason, will not be effective the next, because it has lost the maximum impact of originality.

Bill Bernbach
There are a lot of great technicians in advertising. And unfortunately they talk the best game. They know all the rules... but there's one little rub. They forget that advertising is persuasion, and persuasion is not a science, but an art. Advertising is the art of persuasion.

Bill Bernbach
I warn you against believing that advertising is a science.

Bill Bernbach
Today's smartest advertising style is tomorrow's corn.

Bill Bernbach
The purpose of advertising is to sell. That is what the client is paying for and if that goal does not permeate every idea you get, every word you write, every picture you take, you are a phony and you ought to get out of the business.

Bill Bernbach
If your advertising goes unnoticed, everything else is academic.

Bill Bernbach
Maybe we're getting bogged down in too much detail. Maybe our advertising ideas are being ground up in that multi-level American efficiency machine.

Bill Bernbach