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- Bernbach made
- his first
- advertisement for
- Schenley's
- American cream
- whiskey while
- working at the
- distillery as a
- trainee in the
- post room. The
- president of the
- company
- immediately gave
- the young man a
- job in the
- advertising
- department
- #
- For Bernbach
- advertising was
- not just about
- making sales. He
- believed it had a
- social function.
- "We must practise
- our skills on
- behalf of society,"
- he said. "We must
- ally ourselves
- with great ideas
- and carry them
- to the public."
- #
- Ohrbach's
- department store
- was Bernbach's
- first client. He
- transformed their
- image from an
- unfashionable
- store in an
- unfashionable
- part of town to a
- "high fashion
- with low prices"
- boutique
- #
- Bernbach moved
- away from the
- strident style of
- advertising to
- something more
- oblique, witty
- and intelligent.
- Volkswagen was
- a dowdy, German
- maker of bizarre
- small cars for
- most Americans.
- He emphasised its
- oddness and made
- it seem cool
- #
- Bill Bernbach's
- gently joking copy
- for Avis cars seems
- like the ordinary
- currency of
- advertising now,
- but at the time it
- was little short
- of revolutionary
- to sell a product
- on the basis that
- it was not the
- biggest and
- most successful
- #
- "Dullness won't
- sell your product
- but neither will
- irrelevant
- brilliance." Sure
- it's amusing that
- a native American
- eats Jewish Rye,
- but the joke has
- a point to make:
- he's eating it
- because it's tasty.
- "The product, the
- product," urged
- Bernbach. "Stay
- with the product."
- #
- Bernbach was a
- great idealist in
- a cynical business.
- "We must not just
- believe in what
- we sell," he once
- said, " we must
- sell what we
- believe in."
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