William Bernbach Quotes

Action alone doesn't work in Germany - you need an emotional element to the story.

My purpose as a writer is to communicate in such a way as to challenge the thinking of readers and touch their hearts.

The people only understand what they can feel; the only orators that can affect them are those who move them.

If you can tell a story well, you can move people to do something.

When you feel moved by the story, you want to tell that story.

The idea is to write it so that people hear it and it slides through the brain and goes straight to the heart.

It's not rocket science: The best ads tell great stories. They look and feel like the content you're already consuming. They invite you in. They make you laugh. They teach you something. They also sell.

I don't just want to create products. I want to reach into people's hearts and minds. I want to create memories.

If you can connect with the audience emotionally, that's potent storytelling.

To me, words are like stickpins. I can throw a word at you and it will bounce right off your body. But if I take that little stickpin and wire it to the back of an iron bar called human emotion, I can put that thing right through your heart.

Effective communication is a key factor in the success of your product.

This is true even in organizations that are very focused on analysis and quantitative measurement, even among people who think of themselves as smart in an MBA sense. In highly successful change efforts, people find ways to help others see the problems or solutions in ways that influence emotions, not just thought.

People are persuaded by reason, but moved by emotion; [the leader] must both persuade them and move them.

Logic can convince but only emotion can motivate.

The arts can bring the heart to the aid of the head, the personal to the political.

People will not lend you a hand until you first touch their hearts.

I’ve always believed that the way you affect your audience is more important than how many of them are there.

All fiction, if it's successful, is going to appeal to the emotions. Emotion is really what fiction is all about. That's not to say fiction can't be thoughtful, or present some interesting or provocative ideas to make us think. But if you want to present an intellectual argument, nonfiction is a better tool. You can drive a nail with a shoe but a hammer is a better tool for that. But fiction is about emotional resonance, about making us feel things on a primal and visceral level.

Speaking with passion born of your own authentic experience and belief is always persuasive.

Good marketing speaks to human beings - the way human beings understand and take in information.

I think human beings probably resonate with audiences more than bunnies, but who knows?

There is only one excuse for a speaker's asking the attention of his audience: he must have either truth or entertainment for them.

Swami Vivekananda: The genuine orator exercises a sort of hypnotism over his audience. I have listened to many orators, Indian, English and American; but Keshub Chunder Sen is easily the greatest of all.

John Kerry spent the day reading to preschoolers ... and the kids said Kerry actually lacked warmth and failed to articulate a clear message.

The goal in blogging/ business/ inspiring non-fiction is to share a truth, or at least a truth as the writer sees it. To not just share it, but to spread it and to cause change to happen. You can do that in at least three ways: with research (your own or reporting on others), by building and describing conceptual structures, or with stories that resonate.