Top 40 William Bernbach Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “Advertising is the art of persuasion.”

— William Bernbach

2. “It’s not just what you say that stirs people. It’s the way that you say it.”

— William Bernbach

3. “It may well be that creativity is the last unfair advantage we’re legally allowed to take over our competitors.”

— William Bernbach

4. “Persuasion is not a science but an art.”

— William Bernbach

5. “Those who are going to be in business tomorrow are those who understand that the future, as always, belongs to the brave.”

— William Bernbach

6. “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

7. “An idea can turn to dust or magic, depending on the talent that rubs against it.”

— William Bernbach

8. “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.”

— William Bernbach

9. “Never do anything yourself that you can hire someone else to do, especially if they can do it better.”

— William Bernbach

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

— William Bernbach

11. “A principle isn’t a principle until it costs you something.”

— William Bernbach

12. “Find the simple story in the product, and present it in an articulate and intelligent, persuasive way.”

— William Bernbach

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13. “You can say the right thing about a product and nobody will listen. You’ve got to say it in such a way that people will feel it in their gut. Because if they don’t feel it, nothing will happen.”

— William Bernbach

14. “Adapt your techniques to an idea, not an idea to your techniques.”

— William Bernbach

15. “Properly practiced creativity can make one ad do the work of ten.”

— William Bernbach

16. “The heart of creativity is discipline.”

— William Bernbach

17. “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

18. “Rules are what the artist breaks; the memorable never emerged from a formula.”

— William Bernbach

19. “A great ad campaign will make a bad product fail faster. It will get more people to know it’s bad.”

— William Bernbach

20. “For the Flower to blossom, you need the right soil as well as the right seed. The same is true to cultivate good thinking.”

— William Bernbach

21. “Advertising doesn’t create a product advantage. It can only convey it.”

— William Bernbach

22. “Let us prove to the world that good taste, good art, and good writing can be good selling.”

— William Bernbach

23. “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

24. “If your advertising goes unnoticed, everything else is academic!”

— William Bernbach

25. “The real giants have always been poets, men who jumped from facts into the realm of imagination and ideas.”

— William Bernbach

26. “Our job is to bring the dead facts to life.”

— William Bernbach

27. “Creativity is the most practical thing a businessman can employ.”

— William Bernbach

28. “Research can trap you into the past.”

— William Bernbach

29. “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

30. “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.”

— William Bernbach

31. “In advertising, not to be different is virtually suicidal.”

— William Bernbach

32. “Word of mouth is the best medium of all.”

— William Bernbach

33. “The difference between the forgettable and the enduring is artistry.”

— William Bernbach

34. “The creative man with an insight into human nature, with the artistry to touch and move people, will succeed. Without them he will fail.”

— William Bernbach

35. “Today’s smartest advertising style is tomorrow’s corn.”

— William Bernbach

36. “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

37. “Don’t confuse good taste with the absence of taste.”

— William Bernbach

38. “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

39. “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

40. “Imitation can be commercial suicide.”

— William Bernbach

41. “I warn you against believing that advertising is a science.”

— William Bernbach

42. “Because an appeal makes logical sense is no guarantee that it will work.”

— William Bernbach