• Ad Age, Monday, June 1, 2009 11:15 AM

Doris Willens, who was in charge of public relations at Doyle Dane Bernbach between 1966 and 1984, has written a self-published book that suggests that Bill Bernbach, the legendary co-founder of the agency, was not all he was cracked up to be as a creative genius and agency honcho, Rupal Parekh reports.

While he had a reputation for breaking barriers, there was a gap between perception and reality, Willens writes. In many ways, Bernbach was comfortable only with the familiar: he ate at the same restaurants, wore grey suits and dotted ties, and was generally rather dull in the opinion of colleagues.

Portions of the book ran in Ad Age in the 1990s. "It doesn't take away any of [Bernbach's] accomplishments in revolutionizing advertising, but it also shows the limitations of the man, how jealously he guarded his image and didn't want to let others take credit for anything," says former Ad Age editor Fred Danzig, who feels the book is "more than accurate." Nobody's Perfect: Bill Bernbach and the Golden Age of Advertising is available on Amazon .

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