Success Quote by William Bernbach

Bernbach is taking a swing at the comforting fantasy that data can midwife originality. In one clean line, he draws a bright border between research as a tool and research as a muse. The phrasing is deceptively plain: "We don't ask" frames the mistake as a category error, almost like asking a thermometer to write a poem. Then comes the punchy demotion of research: it was "never meant" to "get an idea". Not "prove" an idea or "refine" an idea - generate it. He’s defending the primacy of taste, intuition, and risk in a culture that wants creativity to behave like accounting.

The context matters: Bernbach helped invent modern advertising at DDB, selling a new kind of persuasion in the 1950s and 60s - witty, self-aware, visually bold (think Volkswagen's "Think Small"). That revolution required faith in the surprising, the human, the slightly unmeasurable. Research, in his view, could protect you from obvious failure while quietly steering you toward safe sameness.

The subtext is a warning about corporate cowardice. When organizations insist research "get an idea", they aren't seeking insight; they're outsourcing responsibility. If the campaign flops, blame the focus group. If it succeeds, credit the process. Bernbach calls that bluff. He’s not anti-research; he’s anti-research as a substitute for imagination. The line endures because it's really about power: who gets to decide what’s worth making - the people with conviction, or the people with spreadsheets.