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Vol. IUpdated November 20261,425 termsCambridge and Toronto

The Madison Avenue Field GuideA field guide to marketing & advertising, by Brandon Mina

LegendsBill Bernbach

Creative director and founder · 1911–1982

Bill Bernbach

The soft-spoken copywriter who started the Creative Revolution from a small agency on Madison Avenue.

By Brandon MinaCEO, BrandPilot AIUpdated November 2026

Mid-century gouache-and-ink portrait illustration of Bill Bernbach, in the style of a 1960s magazine ad
Bill Bernbach. An illustration, not a photograph.

What Bill proved

  1. How you say it matters as much as what you say. Execution is part of the message.
  2. Writers and art directors work best side by side. He is credited with pairing them in two-person teams.
  3. Honesty sells. The underdog "We try harder" line for Avis ran for fifty years.

Advertising is fundamentally persuasion and persuasion happens to be not a science, but an art.

Bill Bernbach · Letter to the owners of Grey Advertising, 15 May 1947 · Source

Key campaigns

  • Volkswagen: "Think Small" and "Lemon"
  • Avis: "We try harder"
  • Levy's rye bread
  • Polaroid and Juan Valdez for Colombian coffee

The agency

Terms from the work

Each one opens its glossary entry.

Sources

The portrait is an illustration made for this guide, not a photograph.