William Bernbach
| William Bernbach | |
|---|---|
| Born |
August 13, 1911 New York City, State of New York, United States of America |
| Died | October 2, 1982 (aged 71) New York City, State of New York, United States of America |
| Nationality | American |
| Other names | Bill |
| Alma mater | New York University (B.A., English, 1932) |
| Occupation | Advertising and Public Relations |
| Known for | Agency founder DDB |
William "Bill" Bernbach (August 13, 1911 – October 2, 1982) was an American advertising creative director. He was one of the three founders in 1949 of the international advertising agency Doyle Dane Bernbach (DDB). He directed many of the firm's breakthrough ad campaigns and had a lasting impact on the creative team structures now commonly used by ad agencies.
Bill Bernbach was born in The Bronx, New York City to Rebecca and Jacob Bernbach. He attended New York City public schools and in 1932 earned a B.A degree from New York University. He had majored in English but also studied business administration, philosophy and music, playing the piano .
In 1933, Bernbach took a job running the Schenley Distillers mailroom. This was during the Depression and a family connection got him the job. He pro-actively wrote an ad for Schenley's American Cream Whiskey, which he got into the right hands and the ad ran. He was promoted to the advertising department.
He left Schenley in 1939 to ghostwrite for Grover Whalen, the head of the 1939 World's Fair and the following year he entered the advertising industry at the William Weintraub agency. He saw two years' active service in World War II and thereafter had a role at Coty, followed by a position at Grey Advertising. He commenced there as a Copywriter but was promoted to Creative Director by 1947.
However, soon Bernbach became frustrated with the sameness he saw in all advertising. In a plea to agency management he penned a letter expressing that concern. One paragraph in particular revealed Bernbach's desire to change advertising creativity:
"There are a lot of great technicians in advertising. And unfortunately they talk the best game. They know all the rules. They can tell you that people in an ad will get you greater readership. They can tell you that a sentence should be this short or that long. They can tell you that body copy should be broken up for easier reading. They can give you fact after fact after fact. They are the scientists of advertising. But there's one little rub. Advertising is fundamentally persuasion and persuasion happens to be not a science, but an art."
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