Hey Whipple, Squeeze This: Guide to Creating Great Ads (Adweek Magazine Series) - Softcover

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LUKE SULLIVAN is an award-winning copywriter at Fallon McElligott, an ad agency that has developed campaigns for Miller Lite beer, Time magazine, BMW, and Lee Jeans, among others, and which was named "Ad Agency of the Year" by Adweek in 1996. Twice named by Adweek as one of the top advertising writers in the country, Sullivan has some 20 medals to his credit in the prestigious One Show, the Oscars of the ad business.

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What if Bill Bernbach and Hunter Thompson wrote a how–to book on advertising?

It would be a searing, very funny cross between an insider′s guide to writing great ads and a sendup of all that′s heavy–handed, dim–witted, and ineffectual in advertising. This pretty much sums up "Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This." by Luke Sullivan, one of today′s most successful copywriters working at one of the most prestigious advertising agencies. A relentless wisecracker, Sullivan provides pointers, tips, and guidelines on how to write and produce successful ads for print, TV, radio, billboards, and more, while regaling you with hilarious war stories.

"Luke Sullivan writes just about as relevant an advertising read as you can get. It′s a perfect lesson in advertising for newcomers and a familiar and laughably painful reminiscence for those of us entrenched in this noble and often crazy profession." Lee Clow, Chairman, TBWA Chiat/Day, Chief Creative Officer, Worldwide

"Luke Sullivan knows the business and writes about it with . . . gentle wit and insight." Dan G. Wieden, Wieden & Kennedy

"The most informative and entertaining book about life as it really is in the creative department of an advertising agency. Even account men could write great ads after reading it." Tim Delaney, Leagas–Delaney, London

"In an advertising world filled with glib, fast–talking ′experts′ more adept at arranging lunch than writing ads, Luke Sullivan is the exception. Here, at last, is a step–by–step primer for anyone interested in writing effective, powerful, breakthrough ads." Tom McElligott, co–founder, Fallon McElligott

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Chapter 3: A Clean Sheet of Paper

Making an ad-the broad strokes

Let's begin this part of our discussion with a quotation from Helmut Krone, the man who did what I think is the industry's first good ad (Fig. 1.2): "1 start with a blank piece of paper and try to fill it with something interesting." So that's what I do, if I'm working on a print ad. I get a clean sheet of paper and draw a small rectangle. I figure if an idea doesn't work in a small space, it's not going to work. And then I start.

SAYING THE RIGHT THING THE RIGHT WAY

Remember, you have two problems to solve: the client's and yours.

You solve the account team's problem by saying exactly the right thing. That's relatively easy. It's the strategy. Your problem is solved by saving it well. You aren't done until both problems are solved.

Bernbach warned, "Dullness won't sell your product, but neither will irrelevant brilliance."

My friend and boss, Pat Fallon, addressed the dichotomy this way:* "In the very best advertising there is no difference, no discernible distinction between strategy and execution. The 'creative' idea is the best, most effective and elegant statement of the proper strategy.

The moral? Do both perfectly.

Pose the problem as a question.

Creativity in advertising is problem solving. When you state the problem as a bald question, sometimes the answers suggest themselves. Take care not to simply restate the problem in the terms it was brought to you; you're not likely to discover any new angles that way. Pose the question again and again, from entirely different perspectives.

"What would make a person pay twice as much for a bottle of whiskey just because it's manufactured in small batches? ... What is the main difference between the manufacturing process of large and small distilleries? ... If it takes just as long to age a lot of whiskey as it does a little, why bother with small numbers?"

As philosopher John Dewey put it: "A problem well-stated is a problem half-solved." It can work. Eric Clark reminds us just how it works in his book, The Want Makers.

In the 1960s, a team wrestled for weeks for an idea to illustrate the reliability of the Volkswagen in winter. Eventually they agreed that a snowplow driver would make an excellent spokesman. The break- through came a week later when one of the team wondered aloud,

"How does the snowplow driver get to his snowplow?"'

If you've never seen it, the VW "snowplow" commercial is vintage Doyle Dane. A man gets in his Volkswagen and drives off through deep snow into a blizzard. At the end, we see where he's driving: the garage where the county snowplows are parked. The voice-over then asks, "Have you ever wondered how the man who drives a snowplow ... drives to the snowplow? This one drives a Volkswagen. So you can stop wondering."

Don't be afraid to ask dumb questions.

That blank slate we sometimes bring to a problem-solving session can work in our favor. We ask the obvious questions that people too close to the problem often forget. In the question's very naivete we sometimes find simple answers that have been overlooked.

Ask yourself what would make you want to buy the product.

A simple enough piece of advice and one I often forget about while I'm busy trying to write an ad. Sit across from yourself at your desk. Quiet your mind. And ask.

Then try the flip side: What would you do if you were the one bankrolling the campaign?

There was a writer at my agency who was also an investor in a new product-some kind of running gear. He was both the writer and the client. When he sat down to do ads for a company whose failure would cost him a significant amount of money, he saw how some of the things he hated hearing from clients had merit.

Copywriter John Matthews wrote, "You learn a lot more about poker when you play for money and not for matchsticks."

Find the central truth about your product.

Find the central truth about your whole product category. The central human truth. Hair coloring isn't about looking younger. It's about self-esteem. Cameras aren't about pictures. They're about stopping time and holding life as the sands run out.

There are ads to be written all around the edges of any product. But get to the ones written right from the essence of the thing.

Reprinted here is an ad by my friend, Dean Buckhorn, for the American Floral Marketing Council (Fig. 3.2). He could have done something about how "purdy" flowers are. He didn't and instead focused on one of the central human truths about this category-the use of flowers as a ticket out of the "Casa di Canine."

Try the competitor's product.

What's wrong with it? More important, what do you like about it? What's good about their advertising?

Then try this trick. In Marketing Warfare, Reis and Trout suggested, "Find a weakness in the leader's strength and attack at that point."'

A good example comes to mind, again from the pens of Bernbach's crew. Avis Rent A Car was only No. 2. So Avis suggested you come to them instead of Hertz because "The line at our counter is shorter."

Dramatize the benefit.

Not the features of the product, but the benefit those features provide the user, or what some call "the benefit of the benefit." There is an old advertising maxim that expresses this wisdom in a way that's hard to improve: "People don't buy quarter-inch drill bits. They buy quarter-inch holes."

Avoid style; focus on substance.

Remember, styles change; typefaces and design and art direction, they all change. Fads come and go. But people are always people.

They want to look better, to make more money; they want to feel better, to be healthy. They want security, attention, and achievement.