In addition to being a gentle, witty, and effective communicator, Bernbach was a reserved salesman. Unlike his competitors, who would do almost anything to land an account, he never directly solicited new clients. This executive believed that his ads spoke for themselves and that his portfolio made the definitive statement about the quality of his agency (Meyers, 1984).

To achieve his new form of advertising Bernbach integrated discipline with freedom. To paraphrase Bernbach’s own words, one must have imagination and inventiveness, but it must be disciplined (Higgins, 1965).

Bernbach’s own dress and mannerisms were not in the style of the "offbeat domain" and in some ways could be found off-putting if one did not understand the depth of perfectionism Bernbach held himself up to.

To understand what made Bernbach tick you needed to know how much he hated imperfection…any imperfection. He couldn’t rest until he had fixed it. He hated the imperfection of being short and pudgy. He hated being Jewish—not because he felt ethnically defensive, but because it was parochial. He was infinitely painstaking about his appearance –it had to be perfect, just like his ads. His son Paul always said that he [Bernbach] was the only man alive who could spend an hour dressing in the bathroom and come out looking exactly like yesterday (Twitchell, 2000).

Bernbach’s own sense of discipline was more stringent on a personal level, but still prevalent in his philosophy of advertising. Bernbach felt that being fresh and original was the most important thing in advertising. He felt strongly that it takes discipline, knowledge and understanding to accomplish those goals successfully (Higgins, 1965).

Early Years

Bernbach was born August 13, 1911 in the Bronx borough of New York City. His father was a designer of woman’s clothing (Fox, 1984). He rode the subway to public school in the city and chose to attend college at New York University in the School of Commerce, Accounts, and Finance. He graduated in June of 1933 with a Bachelors Degree in Commercial Science with a major in Marketing (Hirota, 2000). During his time at New York University, Bernbach diversified his energies by pursuing English and writing in addition to his chosen major.

Schenley’s

Graduating from college during The Depression, Bernbach took his first job in the mailroom of Schenley Distilling Corporation. It was here that he wrote is first ad. Bernbach took the initiative to create several ads for Schenley’s American Cream Whisky line, submitting them to Lord & Thomas, Schenley’s advertising agency. One of the ads ran in The New York Times with no edits (Hirota, 2000). Once Schenley’s President, Lewis Rosentiel was made aware of the authorship of the advertisements he quickly transferred young Bernbach to Schenley’s advertising department.

New York World Fair

It was during this time that Whalen became a mentor for Bernbach. As described by Bernbach,

Whalen refined Bernbach, teaching him how to fit into an upscale world that Bernbach hadn’t previously been a part of. Bernbach developed his clean cut appearance and reserved mannerisms as Whalen nurtured the gentleman inside him.

It was also during this time that Bernbach tried his hand at ghost writing. Previously, Bernbach had worked under the tutelage of Frank Monaghan, a Yale University European History professor and former "Voice of the Fair" (Hirota, 2000). Monaghan was one of the chief organizers of the "Freedom Train" campaign sponsored by the Advertising Council that Whalen was the front man for. Monaghan was responsible for writing Whalen’s speeches (Hirota, 2000). Bernbach, working once again along side Monaghan, gained exposure to the techniques of speech writing and even got to try his own hand at the task when Monaghan was unavailable. Bernbach took pride in becoming Whalen’s chief ghostwriter, once again turning to his passion for writing.

The year 1940 marked the end of the Fair and the end of employment for Bernbach. It was then that he knocked on the door of Weintraub Advertising for a job. Bernbach had met Weintraub during his time at the Fair. This opened the door for him at the agency (Higgins, 1965). Bernbach competed for a job with several qualified applicants, and although he was concerned about his lack of actual advertising experience, Bernbach’s writing talents landed him the job. It was at Weintraub Advertising that Bernbach formed an important alliance with Paul Rand (Hirota, 2000). Rand was head art director at the agency and shared an aesthetic bond with Bernbach.

It is this aesthetic alternative that Bernbach would employ in the famous Volkswagen ads. Rand was an important influence on Bernbach because his association with Rand reaffirmed Bernbach’s love of art and he practiced the infusion of art with copy writing into the discipline of advertising.

In 1943, Bernbach left Weintraub’s for a two-year stint in the U.S. Army during World War II. In 1945 he returned and took a position at Grey Advertising.

Agency life at mid-century was all very white-shoe and gray flannel-suit. Jews—ironically, perhaps because of their heritage as merchandisers—were disparaged (Twitchell, 2000).

Paradoxically, Grey Advertising was termed the "Jewish agency". Bernbach did not see himself as a Jewish copywriter, he never made a distinction between race, religion, or sex, and this was apparent when he formed his own agency. However, it is important to note that he did have a special hurdle to overcome in his career and this makes his accomplishments all the more impressive.

He was one of a handful of Jews in a sea of Protestants. When he entered advertising in the 1940s, the agency world was not dissimilar to that world portrayed by Frederic Wakeman in the best-selling novel The Hucksters (1946). The client called the shots, and the agency, staffed by sycophants from Scarsdale, carried out the client’s wishes. For this docility they pocketed the standard fifteen percent commission and had ulcers (Twitchell, 2000).

Although Bernbach was not part of the mainstream atmosphere that he desired, he would make two important partnerships while at Grey Advertising. Bernbach would meet Bob Gage and Ned Doyle.

Ohrbach’s Department Store, "a Manhattan clothing outlet that advertised ‘high fashion at low prices’ would become Bernbach first major client (Twitchell, 2000).

At Grey, Bernbach created a symbiosis with Bob Gage. On the day they met, Gage went home and told his wife that someday he would go into business with Bernbach (Fox, 1984).

It was these philosophies that they shared in common that prompted them to start their own agency in 1949.

Doyle Dane Bernbach

At the age of 38, Bernbach and Doyle partnered with Maxwell Dane to create Doyle Dane Bernbach (DDB). Dane had come to New York from Cincinnati to create his own small advertising agency (Hirota, 2000). Dane had previously worked with Doyle at Look Magazine and the two men had a more than compatible relationship (Hirota, 2000). As Doyle made use of his previous professional contacts, so did Bernbach, taking Bob Gage with him to the new agency.

Doyle Dane Bernbach was founded on, Bernbach’s principles of discipline and advertising as an art, along with the philosophy he explored with Rand at Weintroup’s as well as the views he shared with Doyle on client and agency relations. Founded in the many conversations with Rand, Bernbach made this statement:

The combination of writing and art leads to an integration of graphics and copy that make for a perhaps more efficient use of the total medium off advertising (Higgins, 1965).

Bernbach put copywriter and art director together to work as a team. This was actually a departure from the previous mode of operating where the art director and copywriter worked parallel to each other until the work was completed and the two disciplines were then fused together at the last stage in its development. Bernbach blazoned a whole new approach toward creative development that opened the door to the kind of synergism he had experienced with Rand and Gage.

As for Bernbach’s approach toward clients, when asked by a very profitable prospective client what answer he would give to being told where and how big to make a logo, Bernbach holds firm that he would tell the client to look elsewhere for an agency (Higgins, 1965). Bernbach’s rationale behind this decision is as follows:

Bernbach maintained the integrity of the agency as well as the work that was being done by his creatives. And again, his philosophies were a departure from mainstream advertising agencies.

However, Bernbach’s new ways of doing the business of advertising were not what fundamentally made DDB so unique and special. It was Bernbach’s commitment to freedom and all inclusiveness. Bernbach himself was clean cut and well dressed, always immaculate. Yet, he did not require the same of his people. As noted earlier, there was no dress code. In fact, Bernbach stated once that he did not want to see everyone in a gray flannel suit (Fox, 1984). He was in search of individuals. Those individuals could be of any race, religion, or sex. Bernbach’s view on looking for talent was this:

Bernbach held himself up to the highest standard and expected the same from the people that worked for him; however, he did not expect them to manifest it in the same way. Bernbach looked for talent intrinsic to the individual not intrinsic to himself or "the agency". He did not want "cookie cutter" creatives (Fox, 1984). Bernbach describes the notion in this way:

Each one’s personality makes for effective work. Now it would be wrong for me to make the man who is great at humor do something he can’t do. This is the important thing. You have to find out what their talent is and nurture that, because that’s a natural thing. Instead of trying to make everybody do exactly the same thing and winding up boring everybody (Higgins, 1965).

It is important to note that Bernbach’s philosophy toward individual freedom included female art directors and copywriters. Paula Green once stated that Bernbach guided his people with a tremendous amount of perspective. "Letting them go," as she put it (Fox, 1984).

Ohrbach’s

These notions that came from within Bernbach the man produced the outstanding work he is famous for, starting with his very first major client, Ohrbach’s Department Store, which he brought over from Grey Advertising. N.M. Ohrbach was instrumental in the creation of DDB. Bernbach and Ohrbach had formed a relationship at Grey, and while Ohrbach was satisfied with Bernbach, he was disillusioned with the agency at large (Levenson, 1987). It was Ohrbach that suggested Bernbach start his own agency and paid in advance for advertising, making it possible to found DDB (Levenson, 1987). In return, Bernbach created an ad campaign with a sense of humor that positioned the product as "high quality merchandise at low prices" (Twitchell, 2000), but also made it endearing to the public.

Figure 1.

In Figure 1, Bernbach gently pokes fun at the "catty" nature of women. Commonly prone to the perils of gossip, it is believable that such a conversation could occur between female friends. However, Bernbach pokes fun in a manner that is not offensive. In fact, there is a certain amount of flirtatiousness to it. The woman that reads the ad giggles at her own embarrassment, but appreciates the recognition of her feminine ways. She warms up to the message, in this case, that a woman can look like a million bucks without spending it. With ads such as this:

Another one of Bernbach’s firm beliefs was that the message should never get lost in the execution of the advertisement. He felt strongly that:

Figure 2.

The thrust of the Levy’s campaign was to position Levy’s Jewish Rye Bread as New York bread not just Jewish bread. This made perfect sense to Bernbach who held to the notion of inclusion as ideal. Following ads would picture people of different races eating Levy’s bread, again getting back to Bernbach’s fundamental belief in the message being supported by text and images. New York has very a diverse population. Bernbach wasn’t making a political statement, he was simply using visuals that supported the premise that all of New York was eating up Levy’s Rye Bread.

Polaroid

Returning to his deep understanding of human nature, Bernbach came up with what would become a famous ad campaign for Polaroid. He appeal to the emotional side of the human psyche when he "created vignettes of friends and families at the zoo, after a wedding, on a train, smiling and crying, images accomplished with the unique help of instant photography" (Fox, 1984).

As Bob Gage put it, "people take pictures of people they love" (Fox, 1984).

Dr. Edwin Land, the genius who invented Polaroid instant photography, felt, perhaps instinctively, that Polaroid’s advertising wasn’t getting his message across (Glatzer, 1970).

In juxtaposition to the earlier advertising is an ad Figure 4 is representative of one of the more favored Polaroid ad campaign commercials in DDB’s portfolio, After the Wedding. A commercial described wonderfully by Glatzer in his book The New Advertising.

It is a beautifully photographed film of the father and mother of the bride. They are obviously middle-aged, with lovely, even sad, faces. The film begins as they kiss their daughter goodbye and watch her leave with her husband to begin her new life. The sounds of celebration leave with them, too, and the father and mother turn around to take one last look at the reception room, now quiet and empty. They come to their own table and pick up some Polaroid pictures of the wedding—spontaneous, not posed, informal—recapturing the spirit of the day (Glatzer, 1970).

Bernbach not only whittled a complex photographic process into a singe tangible element, but he did so through the use of universal moments in the human emotive process. The Polaroid ads not only captured the essence of the product but moved viewers to tears (Glatzer, 1970).

Volkswagen

Polaroid is a prime example of another one of Bernbach’s hardened philosophies about advertising, that one must understand the product. Bernbach’s favorite mantra, "The product. The product. Stay with the product" (Twitchell, 2000). But in the case of Volkswagen Bernbach had a seemingly unlikely product. One might ask why was a Jewish advertiser writing ads for a German car company. On closer inspection it may have been a marriage made in heaven.

The car [Volkswagen] never steps out of character. That character is a wily combination of the schlemiel (the bumbler) and the mensch (the good heart). The car is cast as the Yiddish "little man," the self-effacing worrier, the guy who is always trying to get it right (Twitchell, 2000).

Bernbach’s deep affinity with the product led to the tact he took in the ads. Perhaps he was speaking through them, saying see me as I am and understand my value. The message was infinitely successful. Bernbach spoke the truth about automobiles, something that had never been done before.

The Dodge ad (Figure 5) is a common example of automobile advertising in the 1950s.

Figure 6.

Bernbach took his little Yiddish car and positioned it against the big boys. Volkswagen (Figure 6) became the car of common sense. Its ads talked to people directly and appealed to their real needs and not their desires. The ads made a person wonder, "Why is the company appealing to the brain, not the glands?" (Twitchell, 2000). Once again Bernbach tapped into the human psyche. He said to them no this car isn’t flashy, it’s looks won’t empress your neighbor, but what will is the fact that "it doesn’t need antifreeze, a big parking spot, and high insurance premiums" (Twitchell, 2000).

Bernbach accomplished this message with his graphic technique. The European use of white space, that he had spent hours discussing with Rand, were perfect for the ads. The style was a total departure from other car advertising, which served to capture the viewers’ attention in order to get the message. The ads begged the questions: "Where is the fancy serif typeface and gaudy color? How come the paragraphs are in half-lines, not in text blocks? Isn’t there a lot of blank space?" (Twitchell, 2000). To answer these questions was to understand the product. Volkswagen is a perfect example of the infusion of Bernbach advertising philosophies; understand the product, support your message with every elements of the ad, and capitalize on the human condition.

Later Years

In later years, Bernbach no longer worked directly on ads although he was still very much involved in the creative process at DDB. When asked in his mid-sixties how much writing he was doing, he had this to say, "Today I don’t do much body copy any more, at all. But I edit almost everything in the shop" (Higgins, 1965). Bernbach’s later role was that of a mentor. He was a very good teacher because he learned that leading creatives to the answer was more valuable than just telling them what is was. In comment to this phenomenon, Bernbach had this to say,

Sometimes they hated to see me come in because I would tend to get headlines for them and so on. Well, I shouldn’t do that, and I learned that very early. I’d ask questions and lead them so that they did it (Fox, 1984).

Bernbach’s insight into people extended to members of DDB, not just the consumer. He was a truly sensitive and unassuming man. However, his sardonic sense of humor sometimes led people to think the opposite. Once when walking through the park with a friend, who commented on the beautiful weather, Bernbach replied, "thank you" (Fox, 1987). But in reality he was a mild mannered man who created a legacy for so many creatives in the advertising world. As Phyllis Robinson, a copywriter Bernbach brought to DDB form Grey Advertising, stated that Bernbach’s major contribution to the practice of agency life was that he gave people the opportunity to grow in their own way rather than try to force people to the same mold (Fox, 1984). He didn’t want to impose himself upon the creative process or manifest creativity in the same way. It was this type of insight that made Bernbach a great man, a creative genius and a nurturing teacher.

References

Dobrow, Larry (1984). When Advertising Tried Harder. The Sixties: The Golden Age of American Advertising. Friendly Press: New York.

Fox, Stephen R. (1984). The Mirror Makers: A History of American Advertising and its Creators. Morrow: New York.

Higgins, Denis (1965). The Art of Writing Advertising: Conversations with Masters of the Craft. NTC Business Books: Chicago.

Glatzer, Robert (1970). The New Advertising: The Great Campaigns From Avis to Volkswagen. The Citadel Press: New York.

Hirota, Janice M. (2000). Image Makers: Advertising, Public Relations, and the Ethos of Advocacy. The University of Chicago Press: Chicago.

Levenson, Bob (1987). Bill Bernbach’s Book. Villard Books: New York.

Meyers, William (1984). The Image Makers: Power and Persuasion on Madison Avenue. Times Books: New York.

Twitchell, James B. (2000). Twenty Ads that Shook the World: The Century’s Most Groundbreaking Advertising and How it Change Us All. Crown Publishers: New York.