Bill Bernbach

Bill Bernbach was the Creative Director for Doyle, Dane, Bernbach during its heyday. Working with Helmut Krone as Art Director, Bernbach invented a new way to project a message to consumers, by introducing wonderful creativity and a kinder, gentler approach to advertising. The agency led the way with its fanciful Volkswagen ads from the 1960s, which supplied both entertainment and product information. Do you remember “Think small”? It was a huge shift in advertising communication and became the industry standard that lives to this day.
So memorable and trend-setting was that original Volkswagen advertising that when the New Beetle was introduced in the 1990s, the agency for Volkswagen of America, Arnold Communications of Boston, chose not tothe original concept. For example, the campaign for the New Beetle featured lots of white space (a Krone innovation that means just what it says — the ad wasn’t filled with color and copy from edge to edge), a small photo of the VW New Beetle in profile, and brief copy that read, “Zero to 60? Yes.” This kind of advertising is great stuff, and a compliment to the original ads created by Doyle, Dane, Bernbach over 40 years ago. In fact, Arnold Communications, when submitting its work for awards, still lists Krone and Bernbach as creative contributors.
Bill Bernbach, like David Ogilvy, was good for a pithy quote now and then, including the following: “Dullness won’t sell your product, but neither will irrelevant brilliance.”

Source: Advertising for Dummies, by Gary Dahl