Hey Whipple, Squeeze This

Luke Sullivan

📚 GENRE: Business & Finance

📃 PAGES: 448

✅ COMPLETED: March 26, 2023

🧐 RATING: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

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Short Summary

Luke Sullivan spent over 30 years as a copywriter at ad agencies around the country. In Hey Whipple, Squeeze This, Sullivan delivers the secrets to great copywriting and explains how to create compelling content on digital platforms.

Key Takeaways

1️⃣ Do > Invite > Document > Share — Thanks to technology and social media, advertising has changed a lot over the years. Advertisers used to say things and talk about the client’s products. Today you’re better off if you do things that get other people to talk about the product. Do something that creates an experience, invite people to be part of it, document the results, and share it all online. Your message should be implied in the experience.

2️⃣ Mental Imagery — Find ways to create mental images in the reader’s mind when you’re writing. Paint a picture with your words to convey your message. Make connections between words and mental images. Doing this well helps the reader understand what you’re trying to say. It makes the content much easier to read, digest, and remember. Sullivan does this extremely well throughout the book. He uses many analogies and metaphors to teach the concepts he’s writing about, and it makes for a very enjoyable reading experience. 

3️⃣ Idea Then Execution — It’s all about the idea. You can focus on execution (copywriting, videos, etc.) later, but start by coming up with one core idea that the entire campaign will revolve around. The idea should be so simple that it can fit on a sticky note. The absolute best ideas solve a business problem for the company (i.e. Las Vegas rebranding). Get creative with the execution — in today’s digital world there are almost no limitations to what you can do. Again, focus on doing something rather than talking at people. 

Favorite Quote

“We used to say things and talk about our client’s products. Today we’re better off if we do things that get other people to talk about our client’s products. To begin with, if we do something interesting or useful, rather than simply craft a message, we’re more likely to earn attention. Additionally, if we give people a chance to contribute or just share, we generate more content; content that’s shared between friends, not broadcast from brands.”

Book Notes 📑

Introduction

  • Luke Sullivan — The author of this book. He got his first ad agency job in 1979 at Bonetool, Thog & Neanderthal, and enjoyed a 33-year career as an advertising copywriter. Sullivan is considered one of the best copywriters in history. He has more than 20 medals to his credit in the prestigious One Show (the Oscars of the ad business), and was included in Business Insider’s list of “15 Most Important Marketing Strategy Thinkers.”
  • Quote (P. ix): “As a copywriter, I don’t really have to know how to prototype an app. But if I want to be a valued member of my team, I basically have to be the second smartest person in the room on that subject, and on every subject except copywriting… Where I’d hope, of course, to be first-smartest.”
    • Takeaway — As a copywriter, it’s important to be really well-versed in the subject or industry you’re writing about. Make it a priority to learn every aspect of the product or service, and take time to understand the industry and how it works. The knowledge will help you write better content. 

Ch. 1: A Brief History of Why Everybody Hates Advertising

  • Mr. Whipple — Mr. Whipple was a character Proctor & Gamble created for their Charmin commercials in the 1970s and 1980s. He was a horrendous character. But he helped the company sell a lot of toilet paper over a span of 15 years. A typical ad looked like this: Mr. Whipple would appear uninvited on the TV, looking over the top of his glasses at the ladies in his grocery store. Two women would be in the aisle squeezing rolls of toilet paper. Whipple would wag his finger and say, “Please don’t squeeze the Charmin.” After the women scurried away, he would go over and squeeze the toilet paper himself. They were awful commercials, but they were highly successful at selling toilet paper. And the actor who played Mr. Whipple became one of the most recognized face in the U.S. 
  • Ultimate Selling Proposition (USP) — The concept of a Unique Selling Proposition was created by Rosser Reeve in response to the growing number of businesses sprouting up in the 1950s. It was becoming more and more important to differentiate your product from the litany of competitors you were jockeying with. Reeve led the creation of Aspirin commercials at the time. A USP is essentially a unique benefit the customer will get by buying your product. It’s about identifying it and marketing it.
    • Ex. M&Ms — In the 1950s, M&M commercials talked about how the candy, “melts in your mouth not in your hand.” That was their USP. 
  • Positioning — The concept of positioning was created by Al Aries and Jack Trout in the 1960s. Ries and Trout came to the conclusion that a customer’s head has a finite amount of space to categorize products. It’s up to you to strategically position your product in a way that stands out.
    • Quote (P. 9): “It’s (positioning) like finding a seat on a crowded bus. You look at the marketplace. You see what vacancy there is. You build your campaign to position your product in that vacancy. If you do it right, the straphangers won’t be able to grab your seat.”
      • Takeaway — This explanation is a good example of using analogies to help a message resonate with readers, as discussed in Chip and Dan Heath’s book Made to Stick. The crowded bus analogy helps the reader understand the message better. It makes the idea of positioning less abstract and more concrete by creating a mental image. 
  • Mentors & Imitation — There’s nothing wrong with finding somebody who does what you aspire to do extremely well and adopting their approach, style, or way of doing things. Find one or two mentors and study them. Then begin to “copy” or “imitate” them. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel. When it comes to copywriting, for example, find somebody who writes really well and read as much of their stuff as you can. Then begin to put their tricks to work in your own content. Picasso once said: “Good artists copy, great artists steal.”
    • Quote (P. 14): “I’d like to pose a new idea for our age: ‘Until you’ve got a better answer, you copy.’ I copied Bob Gage for five years. The question is, who are you going to copy while you learn the craft?”
  • Chapter Takeaway — Advertising strategy has evolved a lot over time. Never be afraid to study and imitate somebody in your field who is excelling. It’s OK to model your approach after somebody you admire. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel. 

Ch. 2: The Creative Process

  • Fighting Resistance — The truth is, most people are turned off by ads. They don’t want to see them because they don’t like the idea of being “sold” on something. Your ads and copy therefore have to stand out in a way that’s going to get a person to pay attention and remember your product or service. You’re fighting through a bit of resistance. 
  • Brand Equity— A brand is more than a name on a box or the product inside the box; it’s the sum total of all the emotions, thoughts, images, history, possibilities, and gossip that exist in the marketplace about a certain company. It’s a living, breathing thing that has real value in the marketplace. Established brands have created a real relationship with customers. The baggage a brand comes with is referred to as ‘brand equity.’
    • Ex. Coca-Cola — Coca-Cola has a huge number listed under ‘Goodwill’ on its balance sheet because the brand name and look is worth a lot. If you stripped the company down to nothing but allowed the brand name to remain, it would be able to rebuild in five years. If you took the brand name away, the company would likely drown.  
    • Quote (P. 20): “What’s remarkable about brands is that in categories where products are essentially all alike, the best known and most well-liked brand has the winning card. In The Want Makers, Mike Destiny, former group director for England’s Allied Breweries, was quoted: ‘The many competitive brands (of beer) are virtually identical in terms of taste, color, and alcohol delivery, and after two or three pints even an expert couldn’t tell them apart. So the customer is literally drinking the advertising, and the advertising is the brand.’”
  • Copywriting Process — James Webb Young, a copywriter from the 1940s, laid out a five-step process of idea generation that still applies today.
    • Gather Information — Gather as much information on the problem as you can. You read, you underline stuff, you ask questions, you visit the factory. 
    • Attack — You sit down and actively attack the problem. 
    • Drop It — You drop the whole thing and go do something else while your subconscious mind works on the problem.
    • Eureka! — You have a random moment where a good idea hits you. These often come out of absolutely nowhere. 
    • Implement — You figure out how to implement your idea.
  • Dramatize — As an ad/copywriter, your job is always to dramatize the client’s product or service. You must dramatize it in a provocative, compelling, and memorable way. And at the center of this thing you come up with must be a promise. The customer must always get something out of the deal. Your job is to highlight what the customer gets (i.e. the benefits of the product and how it helps the customer solve a problem or live a better life.)
  • Find the Core — Just as several other copywriting books have described, including Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath, your copy should always be simple and ideally try to convey one idea. One thing. The last thing you want to do is overcomplicate the message and confuse the reader.
    • Quote (P. 25): “The way I picture it is this: It’s as if you’re riding down an elevator with your customer. You’re going down only 15 floors. So you have only a few seconds to tell him one thing about your product. One thing. And you have to tell it to him in such an interesting way that he thinks about the promise you’ve made as he leaves the building, waits for the light, and crosses the street. You have to come up with some little thing that sticks in the customer’s mind.”
      • Takeaway — Find the core of your message and work on getting that idea across. Focus on that one idea. The passage above is another good example of using analogies and creative imagery to get a message to stick with a reader. Sullivan uses the elevator analogy to describe the copywriting process. By creating mental images like this, you make your message more concrete and sticky. 
  • Copywriting Ammo — Regardless of the product or service you’re trying to write about, you always have a lot of ammo to work with. You have the client’s product with its brand equities and its benefits. You have the competition’s product and its weaknesses. You have the price-quality-value math of the two products. And then you have what the customer brings to the situation: pride, greed, vanity, envy, insecurity, and a hundred other human emotions, wants, and needs — one of which your product satisfies.
    • Takeaway — There’s always a lot to work with when you write. Focus on how the product or service will help the customer in some way. Focus on how your product or service brings something to the table that your competition’s stuff doesn’t. 
  • Brand = Adjective — People don’t have time to figure out what your brand stands for. It’s up to you to make your brand stand for something. The way to do that is to make your brand stand for one thing. Brand = Adjective. Everything you do with regard to advertising and design — whether it’s creating the packaging or designing the website — should fall under that one adjective and then continue to adhere to standards of simplicity.
    • Ex. Cars — Jeep = Tough | Porsche = Fast | BMW = Performance | Volvo = Safe
    • Ex. Tools and Soda — DeWalt Tools = Tough | Coke = Happiness 
  • Simple = Good — As a copywriter you are competing with literally hundreds of thousands of brands and ads on a daily basis. A giant forest of brands and ads. What’s the best way to cut through the clutter? The answer is simplicity. You have to get as simple as you possibly can with your messaging and advertising. You are trying to own some real estate for your brand in a very crowded neighborhood. With so much competition, you have to link your company with one word in order to stick with the customer.
    • Quote (P. 28): “I propose the only possible antidote to clutter is draconian simplicity. Draconian simplicity involves stripping your brand’s value proposition down to the bone and then again to the marrow, carving away until you get down to brand = adjective. Make your brand stand for one thing. Pair it with one adjective.”
    • Quote (P. 29): “Many ask: ‘How can we narrow down our brand’s value proposition to a word? Our product lasts longer, it’s less expensive, it works better. All that stuff is important.’ Yes, those secondary benefits are important, and, yes, they have a place: in the brochures, on the packaging, and two, maybe three clicks into the website. All those other benefits will serve to shore up the aggregate value proposition of a brand, once customers try it. But what they’re going to remember a brand for, the way they’re going to label it in their mental filing system, is with a word. Find that word.”
  • Chapter Takeaway — You are competing with so many different ads and messages. Your best chance of standing out and cutting through the clutter starts with linking your brand to one word. Brand = Adjective. Simple = Good. Find your one word. You also want to be simple when it comes to content — find the one big thing you want to convey and focus your content on that one thing.

Ch. 3: Ready Fire! Aim

  • Before You Write — There are several things you should do before putting pen to paper and writing your ads or content. Preparation is essential. You can’t expect to hit the nail on the head without understanding the product, the industry, the company, competitors, and customers. Your preparation should include the following:
    • Examine Current Positioning — How is the company, product, or service currently positioned? What’s the one word or one adjective the company is rolling with right now? Try to find untapped niches that you can use to reposition the company, product, or service. 
    • Understand the Business — Immerse yourself in the company’s products and services. Understand exactly how they work, how they’re made, ingredients used, what makes them unique, etc. Study the business and industry. Read every customer review. Read every brochure. Become an expert on the company, its competition, and the industry at large. This knowledge base will help you immensely when you write. 
    • Know the Customer — Take a deep breath and sink slowly into the world of the person you’re writing to. Take time to put yourself in your target customer’s shoes to understand his life. How does it feel to be your target customer? What motivates him, frustrates him, makes him happy, makes him sad, etc. Find the emotion. 
    • Listen to Customers — Every chance you get to hear what customers are saying, take it. This is part of getting to know your customers. Use surveys. Drop in on online chat rooms (Cambridge Nation?). Read customer reviews. You need to know what your customers are thinking. 
    • Why Would You Want It? — Ask yourself why you would want to buy the product. What would make you pull the trigger and buy? This is another visualization exercise designed to put yourself in the target customer’s shoes. These are the points you should home in on when you write your content. 
    • Day in the Life — This is similar to creating a Buyer Persona for your customers. Once again, visualize how a typical day would go for your target customer from start to finish. How does he spend his morning? Where is he going for lunch? What does his day at work look like?
      • Quote (P. 36): “What we’re doing is looking for insight. It’s kind of like we’re trying to see the aquarium from the inside out, to move through our customers’ world exactly the way they do. We’re looking for contact points with them that are unexplored. We’re looking for places where customers might even welcome a cool message from our brand.”
    • Imagine the Buying Process — This refers to the marketing funnel. Get a full understanding of the steps a customer goes through to buy your product or service. Different media will be in play at different parts of the purchase cycle, and each of them has different strengths to leverage.
      • Quote (P. 38): “Here’s the thing to remember about this whole exercise: Your main idea may come out of one of these contact points — an idea you can then spread sideways and backward to fill in the whole campaign. Find a cool contact point that leads to an idea, then fan that flame into a big idea, and then take the big idea and turn it into a multimedia experience.”
    • Study the Competition — Look at what your competitors are up to. How are they positioning their products and services? What are they doing well, and not so well, with their advertising and marketing content? Check out their social media profiles. Emulate things they’re doing well and position your products and services in ways they aren’t.
      • Quote (P. 38): “Creep through the woods, part the branches, and study the ground your competitors occupy. What seems to be their strategy? What’s their look? Those schmucks. They don’t know what’s coming.”
    • Study Effective Campaigns — Study highly effective marketing and ad campaigns. You can pick up a few tips, tricks, and ideas that you can implement into your own content and ads. ‘One Show’ and ‘Communication Arts’ are two of the best awards programs that spotlight successful campaigns. 
  • Authenticity — People don’t trust ads. They know you’re trying to sell them something. Sometimes the best way to disarm distrust and build authenticity is to flat out admit you’re trying to sell. You can also use self-depreciation to establish authenticity. Admit a weakness. When a brand is candid about its weaknesses, it somehow makes everything else they say sound more believable. 
  • Research the Problem — Spend as much time researching the problem as you do solving it. This goes back to the pre-writing steps outlined above. It’s critical to have a deep understanding of the problem affecting your target customer. Only then can you frame your products and services in a way that shows how they solve the problem effectively. Study the behavior of your audience. See the opportunities inside of the problem. 
  • The ‘So What’ Test — Use the so what?-because method to help you figure out why a reader should care about what you’re trying to promote.
    • Ex. Cambridge Connect
      • We have a Cambridge Connect event we want advisors to attend.
        • So what?
      • Because the event will have a ton of great information, networking opportunities, and guest speakers.
        • So what?
      • Because the information you will gather from the event will help you  better serve clients and grow your business. You will come away with an advantage after attending the event. 
  • Chapter Takeaway — You need to prepare before you write. Become an expert on the company, its customers, its products and services, and its competition. Don’t ignore this. Some of the best preparation you can do involves mental visualization, putting yourself in your target customer’s shoes. 

Ch. 4: The Sudden Cessation of Stupidity

  • Find the Emotion — Study your company and its products and services and find the emotional center. Emotional appeals resonate with customers far more than rational ones. Your goal is to make the customer feel something. And the stronger the emotion you can elicit, the better. Try to really move your customers. Go for it all. Try to really tap into their emotions with your content and advertising.
    • Ex. Mad Men — Don Draper’s “Carousel” campaign pitch to Kodak. 
  • Find a Villain — Find somebody or something to beat up on with your content. The villain could be a competitor’s crappy overpriced product. It could be a pain point or inconvenience that your product or service helps the customer solve. Show how your product benefits the customer by defeating the villain you’ve identified.
    • Ex. Toothpaste — Villains for a toothpaste company could be tooth decay, the dentist, bad breath, etc. 
  • ** Observation Note ** 🧐  — Sullivan uses many analogies, metaphors, and mental images in this book to help readers understand what he’s trying to say. One analogy he uses in this chapter is ‘wrapping the pill in bologna’ to describe how you should make your sales pitch and ad one unified package. Customers hate sales pitches, so your ad or commercial content and the sales pitch have to be unified. If you entertain the customer then point to the sales pitch, “the customer will eat up the first 25 seconds of bologna then walk away, leaving the pill in the dog dish.” He’s doing a great job of using analogies and mental images to make his ideas easier to understand and more concrete for the reader. This is a strategy you can adopt your writing right away. Create mental images with your writing. 
  • Get Something Down — As many copywriting books I’ve read have discussed, try to get something (anything) down on paper to start. Good ideas, bad ideas. Doesn’t matter. Your first draft doesn’t have to be perfect. You can come back and make it fancy and better in the editing process. Try this. Begin your headline with: “This is an ad about…” And then keep writing. Who knows, you might be able to snip off a few words and have a good concept.
    • Quote (P. 52): “To get the words flowing, sometimes it helps to simply write out what you want to say. Make it memorable, different, or new later. First, just say it… Whatever you do, just start writing. Don’t let the empty page (what Hemingway called ‘the white bull’) intimidate you. Go for art later. Start with clarity.”
  • Get in the Emotional Mood — Once you’ve identified the emotion you’re going to try to convey to the customer with your ads, consider getting into the right mood to write by looking at pictures or videos that produce that emotion inside of you. Pull up a few stock images or videos. 
  • Subconscious Mind — Quiet your ego and allow your deeper creative spirit come out. Good creative ideas will often hit you out of nowhere — while you’re grocery shopping, walking, feeding the dog, etc. Sometimes you really do have to just step away from the computer and let your subconscious mind work. 
  • Brainstorming — Let the ideas flow! Don’t stop to analyze every idea that comes to mind when you’re brainstorming. Just get your ideas on the paper and keep moving. You can analyze and tinker with the ideas later on. Good ideas, bad ideas, and horrible ideas are welcome. 
  • Art & Visuals — Visual presentation, in the form of art, graphics, and photos, is so important. The truth is that people pay more attention to visuals than written copy, at least initially. Visuals work fast. They translate better than words. Make sure your visuals are getting your message across just as much as your written content. 
  • Basic Needs — Styles and fads come and go, but people are always people. They want to look better, make more money, feel better, be healthy. They want security, attention, and achievement. These things about people aren’t likely to change. So always focus your efforts on speaking to these basic needs and incentives. 
  • Show, Don’t Tell — Any time you can show a reader that your product or service has merit, do it. Showing is always better than telling. Figure 4.10 is a great example of this idea in action. Two of the kids are on the ground. Very clever.
  • Pose Questions — Creativity in advertising is problem solving. Stating the problem that you’re trying to solve as a question can sometimes generate some great campaign ideas. Pose the question again and again from different angles. Use this technique as you brainstorm creative ideas. 
    • Ex. Volkswagen — In the 1960s Volkswagen was trying to show customers how well their car performs in the winter. They thought a snowplower would be a great spokesperson. One day, somebody on the team asked: “How does a snowplower get to his snowplow?” The company ran with it and created an ad showing a snowplower driving to his snowplow in a Volkswagen. Great commercial. 
  • Use Analogies, Metaphors, and Mental Images — Both in the visuals you use as well as in your written copy, try to use analogies and metaphors to create mental images in the mind of the reader. We understand things so much better when we can see the idea in our mind. Images and symbols have built up “equity,” meaning they have established associations and understanding in our mind based on our previous life experiences. You can tap into this equity by creating mental images via analogies and metaphors. These mental images help people get it. They make what you’re trying to communicate more concrete and easily digestible, as discussed in Chip and Dan Heath’s book Made to Stick. 
    • Quote (P. 71): “In my opinion, the mind works and moves through and thinks in and dreams in symbols. Red means anger. A dog means loyal. A hand coming out of water means help. Ad people might say each of these images has ‘equity,’ something they mean by dint of the associations people have ascribed to them over the years. You may be able to use this equity to your client’s advantage, particularly when their product or service is intangible such as, say, insurance. A metaphor can help make it real. What makes metaphors particularly useful to your craft is they’re a sort of conceptual shorthand and say with one image what you might otherwise need 20 words to say. They get a lot of work done quickly and simply.”
    • Ex. The Economist — The Economist used a campaign featuring a keyhole to show how a customer can unlock competitive business information and inside information on corporations. See Figure 4.12. 
    • Ex. Porsche — Porsche used a “dog off the leash” metaphor to communicate the feeling of flooring the car. See Figure 4.13.
  • Chapter Takeaway — Try to create mental images for your reader to get your message across in a way that is understandable and memorable. When writing content and brainstorming ideas, don’t worry about being perfect with the first pass. The editing and review process is where you can come back and make things electric. Tap into emotion with your content — that’s what gets people to feel and act. 

Ch. 5: Write When You Get Work

  • Headline Writing | Have a Process — You need to have a process when you write. The best way to write great headlines is to attack the assignment from every angle. You have to come up with ideas inside the main idea and write headlines for those sub-ideas. Eventually something is going to click. Try to write 100 total headlines by breaking the overall idea down into several sub-ideas and writing headlines on each sub-idea.
    • Quote (P. 85): “Remember, the point here isn’t, hey, how many headlines can we write, but rather how many different doors can we go through? How many different ways can we look at the same problem?”
      • Takeaway — The best process for writing headlines is one where you take the overall assignment (i.e. bourbon) and you break them into sub-ideas (i.e. age ideas, history of brand ideas, Kentucky ideas, how-you-drink-it ideas) and you write a bunch of headlines for each sub-idea. Then you go back and highlight your favorite ones and keep going with other sub-ideas. Eventually things start to click. 
  • Headline Writing | Headline and Visual Dynamic — Never show what you’re saying and never say what you’re showing. Ideally the headline and visual will be completely different but compliment each other really well. The Harley Davidson example in Figure 5.5 is a good example. 
    • Quote (P. 92): “As it is in dancing, one should lead, one should follow. If your visual is a hard-working idea, let your headline quietly clean up the work left to it. And if the headline is brilliant, is well crafted, and covers all the bases, the visual should be merely icing on the cake.”
  • Body Copy Writing | Write Like You Talk — Stale, rigid corporate speak is not the way to write to people effectively. Write like you talk. Write with a smooth, easy rhythm that sounds natural. Short sentences are perfectly fine. Find a good rhythm between long and short sentences and reduce the strict corporate speak whenever possible. One way to accomplish this is to pretend you’re writing a letter to one person. Imagine the person and write to him/her.
    • Quote (P. 97): “So write to one person. Write a letter. It’s a good voice to use when you’re writing copy. It’s intimate. It keeps you from lecturing. The best copy feels like a conversation, not a speech. One person talking to another. Not a corporate press release typed in the public relations department by some minion named ‘Higgs.’”
      • Takeaway — I like short sentences (Sullivan uses a lot of them in this book and in this quote). A good mix of short and long sentences helps produce an enjoyable rhythm for the reader. Joe Sugarman says the same in his book The Adweek Copywriting Handbook. 
  • Body Copy Writing | Churchill’s Rules for an Effective Speechwriting — Winston Churchill had five rules for effective speechwriting that he always tried to follow. These are great rules for writing and communicating a message in general. The five rules include:
    • Begin Strongly — Have a strong opener that grabs the reader/audience’s attention. Joe Sugarman stalks about the importance of the first sentence in his book The Adweek Copywriting Handbook. 
    • Have One Theme — Focus on one core message or idea you want to get across to the reader/audience. Don’t overcomplicate things by trying to get multiple messages across. 
    • Use Simple Language — Keep it simple! Write like you’re talking to the person. 
    • Leave a Picture in the Listener’s Mind — Analogies and metaphors that create images in our minds are so much more concrete than abstract words/business speak on the page. We love to picture things in our head, and we understand concepts better when we can visualize them. Sullivan uses this a lot in this book. 
    • End Dramatically — Finish with a bang! Leave an impression on the reader/audience. 
  • Body Copy Writing | Presentation Is Key — Always keep in mind the presentation of your copy. You have to make it easy on readers. Break up your copy using headlines and make sure the piece is well designed from a visual and written content perspective. The second a reader sees a block of long copy with very little white space, you’ve lost them. They’re gone. 
  • Body Copy Writing | Trim the Fat — After you’ve completed a first draft, go back and try to cut a third of it. Trim the fat and excess words. Get to the point faster. Eliminate any sentence or word that isn’t serving your core message. 

Ch. 6: The Virtues of Simplicity

  • Go for Simple — As discussed in several other copywriting books, always err on the side of simple. Simple is almost always better. Eliminate unneeded words, sentences, and photos that may distract from your core message. Steve Jobs was also a big believer in simplicity. His product design approach always prioritized simplicity. 
    • Quote (P. 105): “If you take away one thing from this book, let it be the advice in this section. Simpler is almost always better.”

Ch. 7: Stupid, Rrong, Naughty, and Viral

  • The ‘Press-Release-Idea’ — One of the great ways to approach ads is to not think of them as ads. Rather than “doing an ad,” think of it as trying to create something that gets attention, interest, and coverage; something so interesting that it would be the subject of a press release or the 6 p.m. news. Become the interesting thing. This strategy is especially effective in the age of social media and YouTube. It’s a lot easier now to create an ad that is so weird, funny, emotional, or interesting that it goes viral and becomes the subject everybody’s of attention. 
    • Quote (P. 122): “It’s a tall order, I know, but it gets easier when you quit trying to come up with advertising ideas and work instead on coming up with ideas worth advertising. (Highlight that last one. It’s a biggie.)”
    • Quote (P. 122): “If you’re about to spend advertising dollars on a campaign and you can’t imagine anybody’s going to write about it or talk about it, you might want to rethink it.”
    • Quote (P. 123): “With practice, you will be able to start thinking bigger than just ‘doing an ad.’”
    • Quote (P. 132): “The client doesn’t necessarily want you to make an ad. What they want you to do is make something so interesting people lean in to see what it is.”
  • Wrong, Stupid, and Naughty — Don’t be afraid to test the limits a little bit. Most people hate advertising and resent what companies are trying to do. You have to find ways to break through that resentment, and creating ads that straddle the line of wrong, stupid, or naughty have a way of getting people’s attention and breaking the ice a little bit. 
    • Ex. Old Spice — The Old Spice commercials are really dumb and random. But people remember the ads and the brand extremely well. 

Ch. 8: Why Is the Bad Guy Always More Interesting?

  • Storytelling — Rick Boyko once said of copywriters, “We are storytellers in service of brands.” Seven words, but they sum up the job nicely. In the end, all of us talk and think in stories. As an ad copywriter, your job is to make the client/brand famous. Your job is to discover the stories behind the company and tell them in a way that will get people’s attention.
    • Quote (P. 143): “(Robert) McKee makes a convincing case that the human brain is wired to hunger for story — that a structure of three acts, taking us from problem to unexpected solution, is something our brains crave. Story just sucks us in. Even when we know how the story is going to end on some late-night TV movie, we stay up later than we ought to just to watch the dang thing. Theorists suggest that story is actually a cognitive structure our brains use to encode information. So in addition to its drawing power, story has lasting power — it helps us remember things.”
      • Takeaway — Stories naturally click with us. They help us visualize and understand things. They make abstract language more concrete and sticky. 
  • Conflict — All stories run on conflict. There’s never been a good story that didn’t involve conflict. What would Star Wars be without Darth Vader? Without Darth Vader, there is no Luke Skywalker. There is no Star Wars. Without conflict, all you get is a set of circumstances that might be pleasant, but are also very boring and uninteresting. Many companies don’t understand this and like to show how great life is after purchasing their products. This is great, but it’s also boring and uninteresting.
    • Quote (P. 144): “All drama is conflict. Every story you’ve ever heard, read, or seen has had conflict at its core. Sadly, this observation seems to be lost on many clients and agencies. The reason is that most of the time clients want to show how great life is after purchasing their fine products. It’s a happy place where nobody ever has cavities, everybody’s car always starts, and no one is overdrawn at the bank. The problem when there’s no bad guy is that we short-circuit the structure of story and start at the happy ending. I don’t know about you, but life in Pleasantville is boring. Conflict is what makes things interesting. Attention makes us lean in and see what’s going on.”
  • Start With ‘This vs. That’ — To create an effective story, you need to find the enemy or the villain. Find the conflict. Find the tension. Conflict can be almost anything. Sometimes it helps to think of it in terms of ‘This vs. That’ — your company’s brand and products vs. the enemy (which you need to define). Position your company as the ‘hero’ or ‘defender’ that helps customers prevent the villain from winning or helps them escape the villain.
    • Ex. Coke vs. Pepsi
    • Ex. Hot vs. Cold
    • Ex. Love vs. Hate 
    • Ex. Big Business vs. Small Business
    • Ex. Flexibility vs. Restrictions (Cambridge)
    • Ex. Cheap vs. Expensive
    • Quote (P. 147): “Here’s why all this conflict stuff is worth talking about. Wherever you find polarities or opposing energies, you’ll find conflict. And where you find conflict, you’ll find the rudiments of story. The trick, then, is to pit these opposing energies against each other and look for stories to emerge.”
  • Narrow It Down — The idea for your ad campaign should always start on a post-it note. If you can’t narrow the idea down to a simple few words short enough to fit on a post-it note, you need to keep thinking. Every campaign has to start here with a simple idea. Then you can begin expanding on that. But there needs to be one simple, core idea that directs the campaign and all of its corresponding assets. A slogan, basically.
    • Ex. PetSmart — “The only thing dogs and cats can agree on.”
  • Truth + Conflict = Platform — A great way to spark story ideas is to list the single most important fundamental truth about the company or product and then think about the conflicts that arise as a result of that truth: Truth + Conflict = Platform/Campaign. This exercise helps the thinking and creative process. It helps you generate some ideas for a campaign by isolating the truth and adding in the resulting conflict. The result is a campaign idea you can potentially run with. 

Ch. 9: Zen and the Art of Tastee-Puff

  • Effort & Attention to Detail — Put everything you have into your projects, big and small. Pay attention to detail and always go above and beyond. Give full effort to every assignment that comes your way and turn in only your highest quality work. Apple is a good example of a group of people obsessing over every detail of a product. Try to take the same approach to your assignments.
    • Quote (P. 156): “It means sweating the details of whatever ad or script or site you’re working on and going to any length to get it right — and then going beyond that. It means not letting even the smallest thing slide; if a thing bothers you even a teeny bit, you work on it ‘til it doesn’t bother you and then you keep working until it actually pleases you.”
    • Quote (P. 157): “This unwavering attention to detail will not only improve your craft and your client’s fortunes, it will improve you.”
      • Takeaway — Never think about doing something at a high level to please your employer or anybody else. The reason you want to give maximum effort, go the extra mile, stress over the details, and turn in your best possible work is to better yourself. By taking this approach to every single thing you do, you’re training yourself. You’re improving yourself. You’re pushing yourself to be better, and that comes with great long-term rewards. 
  • Focus — Attention is binary; either you’re paying attention or you’re not. There’s no in between. To be as productive as possible, you have to turn off as many distracting devices as possible. Turn the phone and TV off. Turn the email off. Turn the instant messaging off. Focus on the project and task at hand. Turn everything off except your brain.
    • Quote (P. 158): “And so off we go through the trapdoor, trading in our capacity for sustained mental effort for the rich comic experience of ‘gr8 lol’ texts; an exchange well described in Todd Henry’s axiom: ‘You cannot pursue greatness and comfort at the same time.’”
      • Takeaway — If you want to be as productive as possible and maximize your potential, you have to be willing to make sacrifices. You can’t pursue comfort and greatness at the same time. Something has to give. Be willing to sacrifice entertainment and comfort for learning and personal growth. Commit yourself to getting better every single day. 
  • Project Anxiety — When deadlines are tight and you’re put under the gun, there’s a natural desire to run away and hide; to distract yourself by doing something else. You have to instead take the approach that the only way out is through. Attack it head on. Take the approach of, “I have to get this done regardless. Might as well get after it and get it done right now rather than complain.” Complaining is the killer here; rather than wasting your time complaining, dig deep and get after it right away.
    • Quote (P. 158): “Unplug your landline, turn off your phone, turn off the email, turn off the TV, turn off the music, find a pen and paper, put your feet up, and give it your whole mind. And when the anxiety comes, don’t run from it or deny it exists. Acknowledge it and remember, the only way out is through.”
  • Cluster Similar Activities — An effective time and energy management strategy is to group similar activities together and do them at the same time. It doesn’t make sense to try to write (for example) while stopping and starting to answer emails, review other people’s work, put in projects, etc. I like to think of it in terms of task difficulty — do the easy, simple, quick tasks together during the day and write at night when you’re free of distractions. Also, try to do your hardest tasks during the time of day when you’re naturally most productive. Everyone has certain times of the day (morning, afternoon, night) when you just seem to be more dialed in. 
  • Fail Hard — You need to be willing to fail. Every failure brings you closer to success. There is nothing wrong with failure, and it should be embraced. This goes for people and companies. You want to create an environment where taking risks and trying new things or ways of doing things is encouraged, and failure isn’t frowned on but embraced. This is the way forward for individuals and companies because you learn a lot from failure. Failure and experience are the world’s greatest teaching tools. 

Ch. 10: Digital Isn't a Medium, It's a Way of Life

  • The Digital Age — The development of digital technology and media like smartphones, social media, the Internet, YouTube, and more has changed the way advertising is done. The digital age has created opportunities to create “experiences” for prospects rather than just ads targeted at them. It’s not about making “digital advertising.” It’s about making advertising for the digital world. It’s about finding ways to invite the audience to participate in the experience. You almost want to try to go viral because to do so requires something so creative and engaging that it makes people want to share with others. 
    • Ex. Dove — One Dove campaign had sketch artists draw images of selected women. The same women drew sketches of themselves. When both parties finished their work, the sketches were revealed. The sketch artists, who had only known their selected woman for a few minutes, usually drew pictures that made the women look more beautiful than the sketches the women actually turned in of themselves. The campaign’s slogan was: “You’re more beautiful than you think.” The campaign video was posted exclusively to YouTube and generated over 65 million views. 

Ch. 11: Change the Mindset, Change the Brief, Change the Team

  • Focus on Doing — In the digital age it’s all about getting people involved and engaging with your content. Rather than talking at the audience, focus on doing something for them. Find a way to create an experience for them. Make it about them while also tying in your message. By creating an experience for the user, they feel like they are part of the content and not a target of the content. 

Ch. 12: Why Pay for Attention When You Can Earn It?

  • Earned Media — Earned media occurs when your content generates attention from people via comments, likes, shares, media converse, and more. Your company essentially earns free advertising because people are enjoying your content and are sharing it on social media. In today’s digital and social media world, it’s easier than ever to generate earned media. There are a few ways you can increase your chances:
    • Link Interests — Create content that incorporates or feeds off of topics, trends, and ideas that people are already interested in. By linking your content with some idea that’s already trending, you’re tapping into that familiar topic and making your company part of the conversation.
      • Quote (P. 200): “Be interested in what people are interested in. Compete for their attention on their terms, not yours.”
    • Invite Participation — Get the audience involved! Find ways to get people engaged and participating in your content. 
    • Focused Distribution — Your content means nothing if it’s not distributed intelligently. Have a great distribution plan so your content has a good chance of being seen, consumed, and shared. By having a great distribution plan your content has a better chance of being seen, and you have a better chance of earning conversions and leads.
      • Quote (P. 209): “We often think too much about the making and not the spreading. But we’d be wise to heed the advice of Jonah, Peretti, founder of BuzzFeed, who suggests that anyone creating content these days should spend 50% of their creative energies on the idea and 50% on its distribution.”
        • Takeaway — Don’t neglect distribution! You have to have a great plan for getting your content out in the world. Otherwise, there’s a chance very few people are going to see your work. Find creative ways to share your work with the world. 
  • Do > Invite > Document > Share — This is the new formula for success when it comes to creating content and advertising in the digital age. You have to focus on doing things via action rather than just saying things via a message. What follows is a breakdown of the formula. Keep this approach in mind when coming up with marketing ideas.
    • Do — Instead of saying something, do something. Doing is better than saying. 
    • Invite — Instead of controlling the content, invite people to create it with you.
    • Document — Instead of producing some message-based interruption, document the participation and the creation of the content.
    • Share — Instead of relying exclusively on paid media, share the story via owned and earned media
    • Quote (P. 211): “We used to say things and talk about our client’s products. Today we’re better off if we do things that get other people to talk about our client’s products. To begin with, if we do something interesting or useful, rather than simply craft a message, we’re more likely to earn attention. Additionally, if we give people a chance to contribute or just share, we generate more content; content that’s shared between friends, not broadcast from brands.”
      • Takeaway — In the digital age, there is so much more creative opportunity than there was in the traditional advertising age of the 1950s and 1960s. It’s better to think about getting your message across by doing something meaningful and broadcasting it to the world than simply trying to create an ad containing images and text. In other words, the message you’re trying to convey should be implied by what you’re doing in your content rather than talking at people with your text/image ad. 
  • “How Might We?” — This is a great question to get your brain churning when brainstorming creative ideas. How might we create an ad that gets people involved in our idea? How might we do something that gets our message across? How might we document and share the audience’s participation? 

Ch. 13: Social Media Is the New Creative Playground

  • Social Strategy — The key with social media is to pay attention to each platform and create ideas that take advantage of the unique features that come with each platform. The media drives the idea. You also want to focus on delivering value. Feed customers with valuable, engaging content that benefits them and adds to their life. Focus on connecting with your audience, creating engaging content and discussion, and developing a community. Have a purpose with every post and link back to your website often. 

Ch. 14: How Customers Become Customers in the Digital Age

  • Ads & Content — As discussed in the previous few chapters, the digital and social media age has ushered in a change in mindset when it comes to advertising. It’s no longer about talking at people with ads; it’s about creating content where you’re doing things that inherently show off your message. It’s about creating content that adds value to your customer or prospect’s life. Content writing/creation has now become just as important as ad writing/creation.
    • Quote (P. 235): “Remember, it’s no longer about delivering messages. It’s about adding value, being relevant, and understanding how to best use each particular platform.”
  • Creating Content — Good content is customer-driven. It shows how your product or service can help the customer solve a problem or live a better life. To do this, you have to know your customer extremely well and what makes them happy, sad, frustrated, motivated, etc. Creating ‘buyer personas’ can help here. 
  • Chapter Takeaway — When ads were primarily print, radio, and TV commercials, they were made out of words and pictures. It made sense that the creators were copywriters and art directors. But today advertising includes apps, websites, microsites, digital experiences, and mobile technologies. Find ways to use these to your advantage and create more of an experience for the customer/prospect than a “traditional ad.” Your message should be implied in the experience. People don’t really like being talked at as they used to be with traditional ads. 

Ch. 15: Surviving the Digital Tsunami

  • Student of the Game — You need to study and learn. Marketing strategies continue to change as technology gets better and new platforms become available. Study what other companies are doing and how they’re doing it. Adopt a few of those ideas. Find new and creative ways to get your ideas across using what technology and social media have to offer. This means studying and spending time with these technologies and social media platforms to get a good understanding of what they’re capable of. 
  • Enhance Your Skills — Master your craft, whatever that may be. If you’re a copywriter, master the technique, flow, and strategy that go into the craft. Read, study, and learn about it. Practice it. Then find one other related skill and master that one. This is a better approach than trying to become decent at many things. Become a master at one or two skills and you’ll improve your production and quality of work, therefore increasing your value to the company. 
  • Chapter Takeaway — The platform normally drives the idea. Understand where things are headed with technology and think of ways you can use it to get your ideas and messages across. Learn how various technology and social media platforms work so you can use them to develop content that creates experiences for customers. Study marketing. 

Ch. 16: In the Future, Everyone Will Be Famous for 30 Seconds

  • Grab Attention Early — Both in print and in television or video, you have to grab the user’s attention quickly. You do this by first doing something a bit provocative or unexpected and then you expand on it by building curiosity. 
    • Quote (P. 268): “When you open with something that’s inherently interesting or dramatic, you create what George Lowenstein called a curiosity gap. He says we feel curiosity when there’s a gap between what we know what we want to know, and he describes curiosity as an itch. See what happens if you can start your spot with something that opens this gap, creates an itch, and watching the rest of the commercial is the only way to scratch it.”

Ch. 17: Radio Is Hell, But It's a Dry Heat

  • Radio — Radio is a tough medium. Because there aren’t any visuals involved and there isn’t a lot of time to work with, the room for error is very slim. Much like print and video, focus on getting the listener’s attention quickly and holding it throughout the spot. 

Ch. 18: Only the Good Die Young

  • Interesting Career — Sullivan goes into what to expect at an ad agency, including some of the types of people you might encounter. The chapter is cynical and quite funny. 
    • Quote (P. 323): “If the wheels of capitalism ever grind to a halt, the agenda of a meeting will be found caught in the gears.”

Ch. 19: Pecked to Death by Ducks

  • Client Review — It’s extremely difficult to go through the review process when writing content, designing content, and presenting your ads/work for other people. Many of the people reviewing your work were not trained to judge creative content. They aren’t copywriters. They aren’t designers. They often don’t know what they’re talking about. The result, unfortunately, is often the death of your work by a thousand cuts. The best thing you can do is try to anticipate a client’s potential questions and concerns and have a set of answers and explanations loaded in the chamber. 
    • Quote (P. 328): “I have been in meetings surrounded by so many vice presidents, I actually heard Custer whisper to me from the grave, ‘Man, I thought I had it bad. You guys are, like, so dead.’ You will see ads killed in ways you didn’t know things could be killed. You will see them eviscerated by blowhards bearing charts. You will see them garroted by quiet little men bearing agendas. A comment from a passing janitor will pick off ads like cans from fence posts and casual remarks by the chairman’s wife will mow down whole campaigns like the first charge at Gallipoli. Then there’s the ‘friendly fire’ to worry about. A stray memo from your agency’s research department can send your campaign up in flames. Your campaign can also be fragged by the ill-timed hallway remark of an angry coworker. War widows received their telegrams from ashen-faced military chaplains. You, however, will look up from your desk to see an account executive, smiling. ‘The client has some issues and concerns about your ideas.’ This is how account executives announce the death of your labors: ‘issues and concerns.’ To understand the portent of this phrase, picture the men lying on the floor of that Chicago garage on St. Valentine’s Day. Al Capone had issues and concerns with these men.”
  • Presenting Your Work — When it comes to presenting your work to a client or an executive at the company, it’s OK to write out a speech but never try to memorize it word-for-word. It’s impossible and trying to remember every single detail will only make you anxious. Instead focus on hitting the high-points: “I need to make Points A, B, and C.” Focus on each high point you want to hit and then allow yourself some freedom to explain these points in the moment. Trying to remember every word will never work. 
  • Reminder on Tension & Conflict — As discussed earlier in this book, never forget the power of conflict and tension. Without these elements, your content will be boring and nobody will pay attention. There needs to be story and drama to attract interest. 
    • Quote (P. 345): “The thing to remember about trouble and conflict in a commercial is this: as long as your client’s product is ultimately portrayed in a positive light or is seen to solve a customer problem, the net takeaway is positive.”
  • Entertainment — Always remember that most people don’t trust ads and are already skeptical of you. You’re starting from less than 0. To break through the customer’s wall of skepticism and doubt you have to get their attention via conflict, tension, entertainment, etc. Only when you have their attention will they consider listening to you. If you don’t have any elements that attract attention, you don’t have a chance. 
    • Quote (P. 347): “To visit the door-to-door salesman analogy again, you can’t just dispense with knocking on the door. Client to say ‘let’s lose all the entertainment stuff’ are really saying: ‘Forget the introducing ourselves at the door. Forget that doorbell crap, too. In fact, let’s just jimmy the lock with a brochure and barge into the kitchen with a fistful of facts. We’ll make ‘em listen.’ You can’t. You’re not welcome until they like you.”

Ch. 20: A Good Book... or a Crowbar

  • Idea > Execution — Great ads start as great ideas or concepts. The execution (copywriting, design, etc.) comes after the idea. It’s not enough to just execute a bad idea well. Focus on coming up with an amazing concept. Then you can focus on delivering that idea in the advertising collateral (print ads, digital ads, videos, brochures, billboards, etc.). Ideas trump everything. 
    • Ex. Nike Ad — Great ideas don’t require top-notch execution to be considered a great idea; you can tell they’re great even scribbled on a piece of paper. Figure 20.2 is a rendering of a famous Nike ad. The idea here is outstanding. The execution is poor, but it’s easy to tell how great this idea is. 
  • Solve Business Problems — Cool ads are a dime-a-dozen. Great concepts not only produce cool ads, but the underlying idea solves a business problem and helps the company sell more product. The really cool thing about marketing is that it can play a significant role in generating sales and profit for the company. In most industries, the products companies create are relatively the same across the board.  Advertising and marketing is largely what sets each company and their products apart. Don’t focus on creating great ads, focus on creating an idea or concept that solves a business problem and drives sales for the company. Then execute the idea in your advertising. 
    • Ex. Las Vegas Tourism — At one point, Las Vegas was trying to position itself as a Disney-happy-fun family destination. An ad agency finally put a stop to that by creating a concept that embraced the hard truth: What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas. The concept and the accompanying marketing materials single-handily produced record tourism numbers and became the city’s slogan. 
    • Quote (P. 364): “Remember, recruiters and creative directors want more than cool ads. They see cool ads all day long. What will impress them is to see how you solve business problems. Identify a problem for a brand and then show how your idea can make the client money. How your idea will attract more customers or make people look at the brand in a new way.”

Ch. 21: Making Shoes vs. Making Shoe Commercials

  • A Great Business — Advertising has the power to change behavior. It’s a great business to work in with a lot of creative people thinking of ideas and having fun. Ad agencies have been at the heart of some of the most well-known brands in the world — from Nike’s “Just Do It” tagline, to Apple’s “1984” marketing campaign. It’s a fun business to work in where wild creativity is encouraged. 
  • Master Your Craft — Read. Learn. Study. Push yourself to become the best at what you do. There are no shortcuts. Read about marketing, advertising, branding, copywriting, design, storytelling, and everything else you can get your hands on. Commit yourself to lifelong learning and maximizing your potential. Sullivan has done exactly that over his 30+ years in the business, and provides a great recommended reading list at the end of the book. 
    • Quote (P. 403): “Which doctor would you want to have perform your next surgery? The doctor who has one introductory biology textbook from college collecting dust on the shelf behind his desk? Or the doctor whose office is a library of the latest medical texts and whose desk is buried under the past four years worth of the New England Journal of Medicine?… I implore you to read. And learn. And learn a lot. There is no shortcut to being the best. No easy way around it. You have to know your stuff and know it cold… There is no shortcut. This is how we learn. Bit by bit.”