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FIFTY YEARS ON…

On December 5, 2025, our strictly industrial ad/PR agency will celebrate our first 50 years in business. First, a thanks to the great employees and clients who’ve made this milestone possible. By definition, a service business requires those who serve and those who get served. That dynamic cooperation, especially in the marketing of highly technical products to an equally technical audience, presents some unique challenges and we welcome them daily. We balance our creativity and service with the clients’ engineering and manufacturing muscle to reach the optimum audience on time and on budget. That aspect of Bernard & Company will never change, though much else has, over the years.

On December 5, 1975, Fred Bernard incorporated Bernard & Company, having ventured out from a large Chicago agency to plant his own flag. He quickly realized the continuation of his service to his clients would compound the time needed to get the business up and running. So, he put out the word to magazine reps that he was seeking a copy/contact (old Leo Burnett concept for the account executive function at an ad agency) and he found a kid freelancer named Tim Daro. Though they had almost nothing in common, besides the ability to write copy, Fred brought the kid onboard to help with his clients. At the time, a major client whom we ended up serving for 63 years, was a leader in industrial ovens and furnaces. Tim thought the client made pizza ovens and residential furnaces, his lone points of previous contact with those generic equipment terms. Tim had a lot to learn.

As the early years continued, Fred and Tim would set goals for office enhancements…a water cooler, a fax machine etc., tied to monthly profits. It worked and we grew. Like all agencies, many clients were with us for a short time, others stayed the course and grew with us, reaping the benefit of our talents. Service remained the cornerstone. Unlike other agencies with a “one size fits all” biz model, we worked on the Harvard Business School concepts of zero-based budgeting and the task method. In short, tell us what you want to accomplish, we give you a list of strategies and tactics plus dollars to get there, then we cooperatively trim from the bottom up til the optimum plan is derived. So much for methodology. Many of our clients are the #1 or #2 player in their respective sandboxes. Four had record sales last year and, gee golly, they are our largest media clients.

Again, in a service business, it’s the people and their ideas that win the day. Technology gobsmacked the ad agency business with the invention of the Mac and things changed permanently. Printers came to our clients, offering to do free artwork in exchange for print work. Today, printed literature has faded in favor of online catalogs, online data exchanges, machine sim software etc., so clients and we have changed with the times. Likewise, the emergence of digital media has impacted our world, though our landmark study on how engineers get the info needed to do their jobs today drives our planning to a significant degree. (Ask me about that, anytime. And yes, print still plays a significant role, as do trade shows.)

Today, I’m privileged to continue running Bernard & Company, after buying the agency from Fred in 1982. Though much has changed in the business we do and the way we do it, one commandment is indeed set in stone. We will continue to service the needs of our clients, providing the creativity, market/media knowledge and innovative marcom tactics that have made our clients and us successful, over the years. For that, I say thanks to all those who’ve prospered from our service and especially those who’ve provided it here.

Onward!

Tim Daro
President