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The Wisdom of Bill Bernbach

William (Bill) Bernbach (August 13, 1911, New York City - October 2, 1982, New York City) was a legendary figure in the history of American advertising. He was one of the three founders of Doyle Dane Bernbach (DDB) and directed ad campaigns such as "Think Small" for Volkswagen Beetle (recognized by Advertising Age[1] as the top advertising campaign of the 20th century). Bernbach was noted for his devotion to creativity and offbeat themes, a legacy that has hailed him as a major force behind the Creative Revolution of the 1960s and 70s. He is also credited with being the first to combine copywriters and art directors into two-person teams—they had commonly been in separate departments—a model that still flourishes in advertising agencies today.

Here is a collection of his quotes. You can download them as a PDF here

“Rules are what the artist breaks; the memorable never emerged from a formula.”

“You can say the right thing about a product and nobody will listen. You’ve got to say it in such a way that people will feel it in their gut. Because if they don’t feel it, nothing will happen.”

“Properly practiced creativity Must result in greater sales more economically achieved. Properly practiced creativity can lift your claims out of the swamp of sameness and make them accepted, believed, persuasive, urgent.”

“If your advertising goes unnoticed, everything else is academic.”

“Is creativity some obscure, esoteric art form? Not on your life. It’s the most practical thing a businessman can employ.”

“There is no such thing as a good or bad ad in isolation. What is good at one moment is bad at another. Research can trap you into the past.”

“You can turn a page and, before you really comprehend it, there’s a feeling. There’s a vibration. If it’s the wrong vibration for what you want to convey, what follows is going to fight it-an uphill battle against the original impression you made.”

“The magic is in the product.”

“It’s not just what you say that stirs people. It’s the way that you say it.”

“Merely to let your imagination run riot, to dream unrelated dreams, to indulge in graphic acrobatics and verbal gymnastics in NOT being creative. The creative person had harnessed his imagination. He has disciplined it so that every thought, every idea, every word he puts down, every line he draws, every light and shadow in every photograph he takes, makes more vivid, more believable, more persuasive the original theme or product advantage he has decided he must convey.”

“Surely it is better to state our proposition with the kind of talent that will touch and move the reader and viewer than to bore them to death with the ordinary.”

“Nobody counts the number of ads you run; they just remember the impression you make.”

“You can get attention and really make people resent you if you do it with an unrelated gimmick. They won’t like you for that.

“You can have everybody coming in on time, everybody leaving on time, all work finished on the due date, and still have a lousy ad, and fail.”

“I can put down on a page a picture of a man crying, and it’s just a picture of a man crying. Or I can put him down in such a way as to make you want to cry. The difference is artistry- the intangible thing that business distrusts.”

“It is one thing to have a selling proposition and quite another to sell it.”

“Properly practiced creativity can make one ad do the work of ten.”

“It’s that creative spark that I’m so jealous of for our agency and that I’m so desperately fearful of losing. I don’t want academicians. I don’t want people who do the right things. I want people who do inspiring things.”

“Technique for its own sake can be disastrous. Because, after a while, you’re so anxious to do things differently, and do them better and funnier and more brilliantly than the next guy, that becomes the goal of the ad, instead of the selling of the merchandise.”

“Imitation can be commercial suicide.”

“Just because your ad looks good is no insurance that it will get looked at. How many
people do you know who are impeccably groomed ... but dull?”

“We are so busy measuring public opinion that we forget we can mold it. We are so busy listening to statistics we forget we can create them.”

“Today’s smartest advertising style is tomorrow’s corn.”

“Be provocative. But be sure your provocativeness stems from your product. You are NOT right if in your ad you stand a man on his head JUST to get attention. You ARE right if you have him on his head to show how your product keeps things from falling out of his pockets.”

“We don’t do just snob ads, we don’t do just short copy ads, or just long copy ads, or any particular style. If you want to know what makes DDB ads, it is a fresh and original idea that conveys the advantage of the product memorably. We have no formula.”

“I warn you against believing that advertising is a science.”

“I wouldn’t hesitate for a second to choose the plain looking ad that is alive and vital and meaningful, over the ad that is beautiful but dumb.”

“Our job is to sell our clients’ merchandise ... not ourselves. Our job is to kill the cleverness that makes us shine instead of the product. Our job is to simplify, to tear away the unrelated, to pluck out the weeds that are smothering the product message.”

“Know your product inside and out before you start working. And relate that knowledge to the consumer’s needs.”

“No matter how skillful you are, you can’t invent a product advantage that doesn’t exist. And if you do, and it’s just a gimmick, it’s going to fall apart anyway.”

“There will be a time when no headline is proper; there will be a time when a headline is proper. There will be a time when a logo is good and there will be a time when using a logo is the worst thing in the world you can do.”

“Our job is to bring the dead facts to life.”

“A great ad campaign will make a bad product fail faster. It will get more people to know it’s bad.”

“The truth isn’t the truth until people believe you, and they can’t believe you if they don’t know what you’re saying, and they can’t know what you’re saying if they don’t listen to you, and they won’t listen to you if you’re not interesting, and you won’t be interesting unless you say things imaginatively, originally, freshly.”

“Forget words like ‘hard sell’ and ‘soft sell.’ That will only confuse you. Just be sure your advertising is saying something with substance, something that will inform and serve the consumer, and be sure you’re saying it like it’s never been said before.”

“Adapt your techniques to an idea, not an idea to your techniques.”

“Playing it safe can be the most dangerous thing in the world, because you’re presenting people with an idea they’ve seen before, and you won’t have impact.”

“Advertising doesn’t create a product advantage. It can only convey it.”

“The difference between the forget-table and the enduring is artistry.”

“You’ve got to live with your product. You’ve got to get steeped in it. You’ve got to get saturated with it. You must get to the heart of it. Indeed, if you have not crystallized into a single purpose, a single theme, what you want to tell the reader, you CANNOT be creative.”

“There are two attitudes you can wear: that of cold arithmetic or that of warm, human
persuasion. I will urge the latter on you. For there is evidence that in the field of communications the more intellectual you grow, the more you lose the great intuitive skills that make for the greater persuasion-the things that really touch and move people.”

“Execution becomes content in a work of genius.”

“Can you really judge an idea from a storyboard? How do you storyboard a smile?”

“A dull truth will not be looked at. An exciting lie will. That is what good, sincere people must understand. They must make their truth exciting and new, or their good works will be born dead.”

“Don’t confuse good taste with the absence of taste.”

“At the heart of an effective creative philosophy is the belief that nothing is so powerful as an insight into human nature, what compulsions drive a man, what instincts dominate his action, even though his language so often camouflages what really motivates him.”

“There is practically nothing that is not capable of boring us.”

“In communications, familiarity breeds apathy.”

“It is insight into human nature that is the key to the communicator’s skill. For whereas the writer is concerned with what he puts into his writings, the communicator is concerned with what the reader gets out of it. He therefore becomes a student of how people read or listen.”

“There are few things more destructive than an unsound idea persuasively expressed.”

“To succeed an ad (or a person or product for that matter) must establish its own unique personality, or it will never be noticed.”

“To keep your ads fresh you’ve got to keep yourself fresh. Live in the current idiom and you will create in it. If you follow and enjoy and are excited by the new trails in art, in writing, in industry, in personal relationships ... whatever you do will naturally be of today.”

“It took millions of years for man’s instincts to develop. It will take millions more for them to even vary. It is fashionable to talk about changing man. A communicator must be concerned with unchanging man, with his obsessive drive to survive, to be admired, to succeed, to love, to take care of his own.”

“Word of mouth is the best medium of all.”

“Find new symbols, even though in time those symbols will grow old and die. The most
freshly sculptured phrase will eventually become a cliché.”

“With our industry being watched so carefully by governmental agencies, with the FTC
ready to pounce on every claim we make, what we CAN say in our ads is forever narrowing and the sharpest tool left for us is HOW we say it.”

“Finding out what to say is the beginning of the communication process. How you say it makes people look and listen and believe. And if you are not successful at that you have wasted all the work and intelligence and skill that went into discovering what you should say.”

“Dullness won’t sell your product, but neither will irrelevant brilliance.”

“An idea can turn to dust or magic depending on the talent that rubs against it.”

“You’ve got to believe in your product ... you’ve got to believe in your work. Only a deep belief will generate the vitality and energy that give life to your work.”

“You cannot sell a man who isn’t listening.”

“Getting a product known isn’t the answer. Getting it WANTED is the answer. Some of the best known product names have failed.”

“Maybe we’re getting bogged down in too much detail. Maybe our advertising ideas are
being ground up in that multi-level American efficiency machine.”

“It’s not how short you make it; it’s how you make it short.”

“The great mistakes are made when we feel we are beyond questioning.”

“Today, everybody is talking ‘Creativity,’ and frankly, that’s got me worried. I fear lest we keep the good taste and lose the sell. I fear all the sins we may commit in the name of ‘Creativity.’ I fear that we may be entering an age of phonies.”

“Logic and overanalysis can immobilize and sterilize an idea. It’s like love-the more you analyze it the faster it disappears.”

“A unique selling proposition is no longer enough. Without a unique selling talent it may die.”

“Because an appeal makes logical sense is no guarantee that it will work.”

“Working from a method or a formula is guaranteed to do the same thing to the
effectiveness of an idea that time does to a loaf of bread. Ideas must be hot out of the oven if they are to arouse the appetite. That is why, in communications, imitation is commercial suicide.”

“The fragile structure of logic fades and disappears against the emotional onslaught of hushed tone, a dramatic pause, and the soaring excitement of a verbal crescendo.”

“Knowledge is ultimately available to everyone. Only true intuition, jumping from knowledge to an idea, is yours and yours alone.”

“An important idea not communicated persuasively is like having no idea at all.”

“It is ironic that the very thing that is most suspect by business, that intangible thing called artistry, turns out to be the most practical tool available to it. For it is only an original talent that can vie with all the shocking news events and violence in the world for the attention of the consumer.”

“The men who are going to be in business tomorrow are the men who understand that the
future, as always, belongs to the brave.”

“In this very real world, good doesn’t drive out evil. Evil doesn’t drive out good. But the energetic displaces the passive.”

“We don’t ask research to do what it was never meant to do, and that is to get an idea.”

“Most readers come away from their reading not with a clear, precise, detailed registration of its contents on their minds, but rather with a vague, misty idea which was formed as much by the pace, the proportions, the music of the writings as by the literal words themselves.”

“All of us who professionally use the mass media are the shapers of society. We can
vulgarize that society. We can brutalize it. Or we can help lift it onto a higher level.”

“However much we would like advertising to be a science-because life would be simpler that way-the fact is that it is not. It is a subtle, ever-changing art, defying formularization, flowering on freshness and withering on imitation; where what was effective one day, for that very reason, will not be effective the next, because it has lost the maximum impact of originality.”

“More and more I have come to the conclusion that a principle isn’t a principle until it costs you money.”

“The real giants have always been poets, men who jumped from facts into the realm of
imagination and ideas.”

“If you stand for something, you will always find some people for you and some against you. If you stand for nothing, you will find nobody against you, and nobody for you.”

“When we started our agency, we had in mind precisely the kind of people we wanted with us. There were two requirements: You had to be talented and you had to be nice. If you were nice but without talent, we were very sorry, but you just wouldn’t do. We had to ‘make it.’ And only great talent would help us do that. If you were a great talent, but not a nice person, we had no hesitation in saying ‘No.’ Life is too short to sacrifice so much of it, to living with a bastard.”

“A great talent, sailing in the wrong direction will, like the lost pilot breaking the speed record, reach the wrong destination all the more quickly.”

“The purpose of advertising is to sell. That is what the client is paying for and if that goal does not permeate every idea you get, every word you write, every picture you take, you are a phony and you ought to get out of the business.”

Geography Party with The Taglines of America!

Nations, provinces, colonies, states, and cities are all brands! And, many have taglines. Here are the mottos of the States of the United States of America, and the stories behind the honorary account planners that gave birth to century old brand positionings! Cheers! {RSOAP}

Alabama: Audemus jura nostra defendere – We Dare Defend Our Rights
Originates in lines from ‘An Ode in Imitation of Alcaeus’, a poem by Sir William Jones (published 1781), which were adapted by Marie Bankhead Owen (Alabama State Archives) and translated into Latin by Dr W.B. Saffold (University of Alabama).

Alaska: North to the Future
The Commission for Alaska’s Centennial (1967) sponsored a contest to provide the state with an official motto. Out of 761 entries, it awarded the $300 prize to Richard Peter, a journalist from Juneau. Peter stated that his motto “…is a reminder that beyond the horizon of urban clutter there is a Great Land beneath our flag that can provide a new tomorrow for this century’s ‘huddled masses yearning to be free’.”

Arizona: Ditat deus – God Enriches
First included in the state seal by Richard Cunningham McCormick (1832-1901), Secretary of the Arizona Territory. Probably an adapted abbreviation of Genesis 14:23 (”quod a filo subtegminis usque ad corigiam caligæ, non accipiam ex omnibus quæ tua sunt, ne dicas : Ego ditavi Abram:” – “That I will not take from a thread even to a shoelatchet, and that I will not take any thing that is thine, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich:”)

Arkansas: Regnat populus – (May) the People Rule
First adoped in 1864 as part of the seal, and originally rendered as Regnant Populi (’May the Peoples Rule’), it was changed in 1907 to the current, singular version. Origin of the phrase unknown.

California: Eureka – I Have Found It
This form of the Greek verb heuriskein means ‘I have discovered it’, and was most famously uttered by Archimedes, when he had his Aha-Erlebnis while sitting down in a bath, and simultaneously understanding that the volume of water displaced must be equal in volume of his submerged body. He is said to have been so psyched by his discovery that he ran through the streets of Syracuse naked.
The Californian moment of discovery celebrated by the state slogan is the striking of gold near Sutter’s Mill in 1848, giving rise to the Gold Rush. The Greek exclamation has been on California’s seal since 1849, but was only officialised in 1963. The town or Eureka uses the state seal as its city seal. Over 40 localities were similarly named, and the word has also been used in Australian gold rush, a few years after the Californian one.

Colorado: Nil sine numine – Nothing Without Providence
Probably an adaptation of Line 777 in Book 2 of Virgil’s Aeneid: (…) non haec sine numine devum eveniunt. The translation has often given cause for dispute, as ‘numen’ is a word that may be translated as vague-sounding Providence, as a rather non-commital Deity or as the strict and fierce monotheistic God. Some more practically-minded pioneers anglified the state slogan as ‘Nothing without a new mine’.

Connecticut: Qui transtulit sustinet – He Who Transplanted Still Sustains
Originally rendered as Sustinet qui transtulit on a seal brought from England to New England by Colonel George Fenwick in 1639, the realigned phrase was explained in 1775 as: “God, who transplanted us hither, will support us.” It might ultimately be a reference to Psalm 80, which speaks of a vine out of Egypt, transplanted to the Promised Land by God.

Delaware: Liberty and Independence
This motto was suggested by the Society of the Cincinnati, a hereditary organisation of descendants of officers from the American Revolutionary War, and underscores tiny Delaware’s huge importance in the start of that war, and consequently its pivotal role in establishing liberty as a cornerstone of American independence.

Florida: In God We Trust
First appeared on US coinage in 1864 and the nation’s official motto since an Act of Congress in 1956, this is also the state of Florida’s official motto – although only since 2006.It might be an adaptation of the line ‘In God is our trust’ in the US’s national anthem, ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ by Francis Scott Key; or it might refer to In Deo Speramus (’In God we hope’), the motto of Brown University, alma mater of president Lincoln’s personal secretary John Milton Hay.

Georgia: Wisdom, Justice, and Moderation
Georgia has two different mottos, one for each side of the Great Seal; the other one is Agriculture and Commerce. Since the side with the former motto is used
to officiate state documents (and since Tennessee also uses the latter motto), Wisdom, Justice and Moderation is generally considered to be Georgia’s state motto.

Hawaii: Ua Mau Ke Ea O Ka Aina I Ka Pono – The Life of the Land is Perpetuated in Righteousness
Adopted as the motto of the (independent) Kingdom of Hawaii in 1843, after it was used by King Kamehameha III upon the restoration of Hawaiian sovereignty by the British (who had usurped it for five months).

Idaho: Esto perpetua – Let It Be Eternal
Famous last words of Venetian theologian Fra Paolo (16/17th century), referring to his beloved home city (then still a powerful independent state). They also appear in the closing chapter of Jefferson Davis’ History of the Confederacy (1881), which might be the primary source for the state motto.

Illinois: State Sovereignty, National Union
This state motto is indicative of the tensions that simmered for much of the 19th century between pro-slavery states (using state sovereignty as a justification for maintaining the institution of slavery) and anti-slavery states (seeing the abolition of slavery as a matter of overriding concern for the unity of the nation). The motto was decreed in 1819; Illinois has just entered the Union as a free state, straight after Mississippi, and just before Alabama (both slave states). The balancing act expressed by Illinois’ motto was somewhat upset when in 1867 (shortly after the Civil War) it was proposed to reverse the wording to National Union, State Sovereignty, the proposal was rejected, but the amended seal now features the second part of the slogan slightly more prominent than in the first design.

Indiana: The Crossroads of America
Indiana had no state motto until the mid-1930s, when newspaper columnist J. Roy Strickland used his column ‘Paragraphy’ to start a campaign to find one. Hundreds of suggestions poured in, and a committee of five Indiana legislators selected the current motto (as always, it would be fun to have a look at the also-rans, but alas, the sources remain silent on this matter). “The Crossroads of America” was officially adopted by Joint Resolution No. 6 of the General Assembly of the House of Representatives of Indiana on March 2, 1937 – curiously, the resolution states that the phrase may be used “as the official State motto or slogan”…

Iowa – Our Liberties We Prize and our Rights We Will Maintain
Devised by a three-man committee of the State Senate and adopted as part of the state’s Great Seal upon its entry into the Union in 1846, Iowa’s motto has no (known) antecedents in literary antiquity.,

Kentucky: United We Stand, Divided We Fall
One of the most widely used mottos, traceable to two of Aesop’s Fables (The Four Oxen and the Lion, The Bundle of Sticks), used in Revolutionary War songs and since 1942 Kentucky’s official state motto. The slogan is/was also used on the Missouri flag, by Indian independentists, Ulster Unionists and many others.

Kansas Ad Astra per Aspera – To the Stars Through Difficulties
Often reversed to Per Aspera ad Astra or adapted further to Per Ardua ad Astra, this is a very popular Latin motto, also used by the Royal Air Force, NASA, several schools and universities, the former German Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, the Dutch city of Gouda (of cheese-making fame), Starfleet (in Star Trek) and on packs of Pall Mall cigarettes.

Louisiana: Union, Justice, Confidence
Specified in 1902 by governor W.W. Heard as part of the official state seal.

Maine: Dirigo – I Direct
Maine was once the only state to hold its presidential elections in September, leading to the saying: “As Maine goes, so goes the nation”.

Maryland: Fatti maschii parole femine – Strong Deeds, Gentle Words
This might sound like Latin, but it is in fact Italian – Maryland being the only state to have a motto in that language (and in an antiquated orthography too). It translates literally as ‘Manly deeds, womanly words’, which these days would be highly politically incorrect, as it conveys the same meaning as Teddy Roosevelt’s “Walk softly and carry a big stick”. Maryland state government translates the motto as “Strong deeds, gentle words”. The motto is that of the English Calvert family (the barons Baltimore), who founded the state in 1622 as an English colony reserved for catholics.

Massachusetts: Ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem – By the Sword We Seek Peace, But Peace Only Under Liberty
In frequent use since 1775, but not (yet) adopted as an official state motto. Attributed to the father of English politician Algernon Sydney, in a letter to his son, and later included in Sydney (Jr)’s “Book of Mottoes”.

Michigan:Si quaeris peninsulam amoenam circumspice – If You Seek a Pleasant Peninsula, Look About You.
Adopted in 1835, possibly inspired by a tribute to architect Sir Christopher Wren, who rebuilt much of London after the Great Fire (1666), at St Paul’s, which he also rebuilt.

Minnesota: L’etoile du nord – The Star of the North
Chosen by the state’s first governor, Henry Hastings Sibley and adopted in 1861, and the origin of Minnesota’s nickname as the North Star State.

Mississippi:Virtute et armis – By Valor and Arms
May have been influenced by Lord Gray de Wilton’s motto: Virtute non armis fido (I trust in virtue, not arms).

Missouri: Salus populi suprema lex esto – The Welfare of the People Shall Be the Supreme Law
Taken from Book III of Cicero’s De Legibus (’On the Laws’), and also the motto of Salford and Lewisham (both in the UK), and used by John Locke as the epigraph in his Second Treatise on Government.

Montana: Oro y plata – Gold and Silver
Conceived in 1865 to reflect Montana’s assets, and to have a nice ring to it (hence the Spanish), it defeated the proposition to make El Dorado (’The Place of Gold’) the state’s motto.

Nebraska: Equality Before the Law
(No background information found)

Nevada: All For Our Country
Possibly the blandest of all state mottos, especially compared with the combative tone of the next one.

New Hampshire: Live Free or Die

Probably the best-known of all US state mottos, as it succinctly and boldly expresses the original essence of American independence. It originates with General John Stark, who in 1809 used it to decline an invitation to a reunion of the Battle of Bennington because of poor health. The entire message read: Live free or die: Death is not the worst of evils. The stridency of the slogan opens it up to parody, such as Live Free or Don’t (used in Futurama) and Live Free or Cheap (The West Wing), its recognisability has even been used to provide the fourth in a series of Bruce-Willis-saves-the-world-yet-again vehicles with a name: Live Free or Die Hard.

New Jersey: Liberty and Prosperity
Derived from the two goddesses portrayed on the state’s Great Seal.

New Mexico: Crescit eundo – It Grows As It Goes
Without context, the motto sounds like an avant-slacker anthem. But it is a phrase originating in Book VI of Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura (’On the Nature of Things’), where it describes the growing force of a thunderbolt.

New York: Excelsior – Ever Upward
Origin unknown. Possibly derived from the eponymous inspirational poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

North Carolina: Esse quam videri – To Be Rather than to Seem
From chapter 98 of Cicero’s essay De Amicitia (’On Friendship’), where in its context is is used to mean the opposite: Virtute enim ipsa non tam multi praediti esse quam videri volunt: ‘Few are those who wish to be endowed with virtue rather than to seem so’. Sallustius however used it more positively in Bellum Catalinae, where he describes Cato the Younger as esse quam videri bonus malebat (’he preferred to be good rather than to seem so’). The motto is particularly popular in educational circles, figuring as the motto of many schools, sororities and fraternities. It was adopted by North Carolina in 1893 – prior to that, it had been the only one of the original 13 states without a motto.

North Dakota: Liberty and Union, Now and Forever, One and Inseparable
A quote of Daniel Webster from his Second Reply to Hayne in the famous Webster-Hayne debate on the Senate floor in 1830 – and now the longest state motto of them all.

Ohio: With God, All Things are Possible
Despite judicial action by proponents of a separation of church and state, this remains Ohio’s motto, arguably the country’s most overtly religious. Deriving from Matthew 19:26, it was enacted in 1959 after remarkable lobbying by Jimmy Mastronardo, a 9 year old boy who travelled to the state capitol, registered as a lobbyist and campaigned for three years before the governor signed it into law.

Oklahoma: Labor omnia vincit – Labor Conquers All Things
A quote from Book I of Virgil’s Georgica, which supported Augustus’s campaign to encourage more Romans to become farmers. Also the motto of the American Federation of Labor, some cities and a truckload of schools.

Oregon: Aliis volat propriis – She Flies With Her Own Wings
First written in English (by Jesse Quinn Thornton, a local judge) and only then translated into Latin. It was officially adopted in 1854 (when Oregon was still a territory), and referred to a vote establishing a provisional government for the territory, independent of the US and Britain.

Pennsylvania: Virtue, Liberty and Independence
Adapted in 1875, taken from the state’s coat of arms, representing the fact that Pennsylvania was where the Declaration of Independence was signed.

Rhode Island: Hope
(no additional information found)

South Carolina: Dum spiro spero – While I Breathe, I Hope
In its brevity and elegance, this motto is a fine example of why Latin makes such a good language for mottos. The saying is attributed to Cicero, in his letters to Atticus, and to St Andrew. It has been adopted as a motto by the town of St Andrews in Scotland, and by the Hutt River Principality, an Australian (unrecognised) micronation (discussed earlier in on this blog). It also adorns the coat of arms of numerous families, among which the Scottish clan MacLennan and is used – possibly with a hint of irony – by the Asthma Sinus Allergy Program in Maryland’s Greater Baltimore Medical Center.

South Dakota: Under God the People Rule
Adopted as part of the state seal at the 1885 Constitutional Convention, on the suggestion of Rev. Joseph Ward (founder of Yankton College), this one strikes a fine balance between religion (as one of the great motivating forces of Americans) and democracy (requiring a separation of church and state).

Tennessee: Agriculture and Commerce
Appeared on the state’s Great Seal since 1801, but officially adopted as state motto only in 1987.

Texas: Friendship
Refers to the state’s name, which derives from taysha, a Native American word meaning ‘friends’ or ‘allies’.

Utah: Industry
The concept of industry has for centuries been connected with the image of the beehive, which is a state symbol in Utah.

Vermont: Freedom and Unity
Adopted in 1788 for use on independent Vermont’s Great Seal, and re-approved upon its admission to the Union in 1791. The new US state’s first governor, Thomas Chittenden, cited the motto in his epitaph: “Out of storm and manifold perils rose an enduring state, the home of freedom and unity.”

Virginia: Sic semper tyrannis – Thus Always to Tyrants
Originally attributed to Marcus Junius Brutus, the assassin of Julius Caesar (March 15, 44 BC), later used by John Wilkes Booth as he shot dead president Lincoln (1865), and more recently by Timothy McVeigh, who wore a t-shirt with this motto (and with Lincoln’s picture) when he bombed the government building in Oklahoma City (1995). Usage of the motto by Virginia dates from 1776 and thus predates the latter two (mis)uses.

Washington: Alki – By and By
In 1851, the first settlers founded New York al-ki, which means “by and by” in the Chinook language.

West Virginia: Montani semper liberi – Mountaineers Are Always Free
The motto was suggested by Joseph H. DisDebar, the artist who created the state’s Great Seal, and was officially adopted in 1872. The Colombian city of Bucaramanga uses the same motto.

Wisconsin: Forward
(no additional information found)

Wyoming: Equal Rights
In 1869, Wyoming was the first US state, and one of the first territories worldwide, to give women the right to vote. Hence the motto, celebrating Wyoming’s pioneering role in establishing women’s suffrage. One of the state’s nicknames is “Equality State”.

Special thanks to strangemaps.wordpress.com for letting us know about this. You can visit their original post here

Skull Question 1: A royal gentelman asks, "Do we all belive in the law of singularity?"

Deep in the dusty old library of the royal academy, we pulled out a book from 2002, entitled the 22 immutable laws of branding. One of our members laughed at it and called it rubbish. But, as we drank library ale and perused the yellow pages we did find a law that might be worthy of
"immutable-ness."
Law number 22. "The law of singularity." It states, "The most important aspect of a brand is its single-mindedness." "A brand is a proper noun that can be used in place of a common word" Then they go on that common anti-Panasonic rant we have all heard before. Explaining, how "Panny" is worthless because while standing for so many electronics that stand for nothing in peoples minds.

Think about this carefully fellow members... Can you think of a brand that kicks bullocks but is also absent minded in its focus. If so please comment!

Just in case you haven't read this already

This is a classic and a must read for all Account Planners. So, if you're just starting out and haven't read this yet, click on the link and buy a copy now. Truth, Lies and Advertising : The Art of Account Planning by Jon Steel

Welcome Welcome! Let's start with an anatomy lesson on Account Planning

Welcome! To the first meeting of the Royal Account Planning Society. We are honored to have you among our ranks. The first order of business will be to make sure that we all have a firm grasp of what it is we all do.

Here are 3 Documents that should help:

1. The Account Planning Group's Definition of Account Planning
What is Account Planning (2007) PDF
What is Account Planning (1986) PDF
In 1986 the APG published a booklet written by Sev d'Souza as a definition of account planning. Fifteen years later, with the further evolution of planning, that definition needed updating. Merry Baskin (APG Chair in 1998 and 1999) undertook the task and in 2001 wrote the Millenium edition -- which she updated in 2007 to be ready for the 40th anniversary of planning in 2008.

2. Henrick Habberstad's highly recommended Anatomy of Account Planning (2000) Click here to download the Word file
This document analyzes our craft, it's history, and gives some visions for the future. I was written by Henrik Habberstad, a planner at Dinamo in Oslo with input from some of the best brains in the business and comes highly recommended from Stephen King himself "The father of account planning."

“Henrik Habberstad has clearly done an enormous amount of research about account planning and talked to a lot of people. I can’t believe that there’s much remaining about the topic that hasn’t been covered; so this will be the most detailed and comprehensive paper available on planning”

- Stephen King -

3. The 1974 classic by Stephen King: The JWT Planning Guide
Click here to download the PDF