Thank you, for publishing an article (‘It’s 1994, you’re in Toronto, you want to win awards. And your name is Bernbach’) in the Sept. 19 issue so exciting that I wanted to run up and down the street with it held high over my head yelling, ‘Yes! Yes! Yes! Someone out there remembers.’

Finally. And, thank you, Randy Diplock, for writing it.

It made me think of a scenario I can’t seem to get out of my mind.

It’s one of a marketing director being told by his supervisor that he is being fired.

‘Why?’ asks the marketing director.

‘Because, the very esoteric, extremely expensive advertising you’ve approved for the last two years has done nothing for sales,’ the supervisor explains.

‘But, I just don’t get it,’ the marketing director says. ‘It’s been winning awards around the world.’

Bill Bernbach wasn’t in this business to win awards. He was in it to sell Volkswagens.

I believe the lesson here is, there’s no point in copying the formula if you overlook the reason the formula was created to begin with.

Thank you, Randy, for the reminder. Point taken.

Heidi Ehlers

Seven Figure Concepts

Toronto