Nobody's Perfect: Bill Bernbach and the Golden Age of Advertising

Brilliant insights in to his life

I worked for the company at the same time and could judge the narrative

Fascinating Story but the writing was a little uneven - at times brilliant,and at other times it felt like it was notes cobbled together. Book also could have benefited greatly from some pictures of the personalities involved and the advertising campaigns discussed. Is a great companion book to Bill Bernbach's book - which does profile many of the well known ads. Overall though a very enjoyable read.

The content is interesting. A review about Bill Bernbach life and work.But It isn't any images. And edition is very bad.

It is unfortunate that Bill Bernbach didn't think of leaving behind him some kind of legacy like David Ogilvy did. Some books, some biographies etc would have been great. This book is as close as we'll get to a biography I guess for now. I found it a little weak on facts and on the real ad-man life but was happy to have read it and would recommend it to those that want to know about the ad world.

So much has been hyped about Bill Bernbach and his genius in the ad revolution, it was refreshing to get an alternate view of what really went on.Having been in the business for close to 25 years, I can relate to a lot of the challenges and the accounts of boardroom meetings, the back and forth on the accounts and clients and then the challenges of working with very talented writers and art directors.At some point, the ugly stresses and self doubt would surely creep in, and Bernbach is not immune to such problems.There is still no disputing his drive and vision for what the advertising business could create, especially at a time when any company would throw the worst ads into the mix, just so they could bill the client and enjoy a padded expense account.His work was fresh, simple and very humourous, using wit and self-deprecating approaches that were human truths.Admitting you were #2, but you tried harder is NOT the first place American business would leap when they wanted to talk about themselves, but his approaches spoke to the honesty of the products and what was on the mind of the consumers.I liked the book and the exposure of his faults. At the end of the day, he was human, and had his issues, like everyone else. I think history has hid most of them due to his success and ground-breaking agency.