Bernbach, William

Definition:
(1911-82). One of the half dozen most celebrated modern American advertising men, co-founder of the Doyle Dane Bernbach advertising agency. His name lives on today only in the last initial of the London agency BMP DDB, fourth largest in Britain in 1996. Bill Bernbach was especially known for his views about CREATIVITY. Though originally a writer himself, he became convinced that people look before they read, and therefore gave the artists and designers at Doyle Dane Bernbach standing equal to that enjoyed by the writers. In the great majority of advertising agencies, the creative function is headed by a COPYWRITER, not an ART DIRECTOR; this is presumably a legacy from the early days, when all advertising was verbal rather than pictorial. Bernbach was therefore an iconoclast. His agency's most famous advertising was for Volkswagen in the 1960s and 1970s. The VW Beetle, a car in the most marked possible contrast to the American norm, was propelled to almost cult status by (among other factors, no doubt) a series of advertising campaigns that were highly original both visually and verbally. Best known of these abroad was a press advertisement with the headline 'Think small' above a straightforward photograph of the car - a decidedly different approach, given the lush and exaggerated 'artist's impressions' in the domestic manufacturers' advertising. The BODY COPY below the illustration contained several hundred words of reasoned argument. The campaign was voted 'greatest advertising and marketing success of the past fifty years' by a panel of American judges in 1980. Bill Bernbach also expressed a robust scepticism about the value of much ADVERTISING TESTING, having reportedly said: 'The client wants some research, so cut him a yard of it.'

Cross-References:
[creative] [copywriter] [art director] [body copy] [advertising testing]

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