Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Five best: books on advertising

A few years ago at the Wall Street Journal, advertising executive Jerry Della Femina named a five best list of books on advertising.

One title on the list:
Bill Bernbach's Book by Bob Levenson (Random House, 1987).

"Forget words like hard sell and soft sell. That will only confuse you. Just be sure your advertising is saying something with substance . . . like it's never been said before"--Bill Bernbach, addressing the troops at his agency, DDB. Bill was the father of advertising's creative revolution in the early 1950s. The graphics were clean and stopped the reader before a page could be turned. The copy was smart. Easy to understand. Products and clients came off the pedestal and became human. Many of the great ads that appear in this book (subtitled "A History of Advertising That Changed the History of Advertising") came from Bob Levenson, who writes lovingly of his friend and mentor--the man who changed the face of advertising.
Read about the other books on Della Femina's list.

--Marshal Zeringue