Hey,Whipple, Squeeze This A Guide to Creating Great Ads Third Edition LUKE SULLIVAN John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Hey,Whipple, Squeeze This Adweek Books address the challenges and opportunities of the marketing and advertising industries, written by leaders in the business. We hope readers will find these books as helpful and inspiring as Adweek, Brandweek, and Mediaweek magazines. Great Books from the Adweek Series Include: Disruption: Overturning Conventions and Shaking Up the Marketplace, by Jean-Marie Dru Truth, Lies and Advertising: The Art of Account Planning, by Jon Steel Perfect Pitch: The Art of Selling Ideas and Winning New Business, by Jon Steel Eating the Big Fish: How Challenger Brands Can Compete Against Brand Leaders, 2nd Edition, by Adam Morgan Life after the 30-Second Spot: Energize Your Brand With a Bold Mix of Alternatives to Traditional Advertising, by Joseph Jaffe Pick Me!: Breaking Into Advertising, and Staying There, by Janet Kestin and Nancy Vonk Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This: A Guide to Creating Great Advertising, 3rd Edition, by Luke Sullivan Hey,Whipple, Squeeze This A Guide to Creating Great Ads Third Edition LUKE SULLIVAN John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Copyright © 2008 by Luke Sullivan All rights reserved. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey. Published simultaneously in Canada. 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ISBN 9780470190739 Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 TO MY DEAR WIFE, CURLIN, AND OUR GROWING BOYS, REED AND PRESTON CONTENTS FOREWORD BY ALEX BOGUSKY xi PREFACE xiii CHAPTER 1 Salesmen Don’t Have to Wear Plaid Selling without selling out 1 CHAPTER 2 A Sharp Pencil Works Best Some thoughts on getting started 16 CHAPTER 3 A Clean Sheet of Paper Making an ad—the broad strokes 36 CHAPTER 4 Write When You Get Work Making an ad—some finer touches 80 CHAPTER 5 In the Future, Everyone Will Be Famous for 30 Seconds Some advice on making television commercials 116 viii Contents CHAPTER 6 But Wait,There’s More! Does direct-response TV have to suck? 130 CHAPTER 7 Radio Is Hell. But It’s a Dry Heat. Some advice on working in a tough medium 148 CHAPTER 8 Big Honkin’ Ideas Hitting on every cylinder 174 CHAPTER 9 “Toto, I Have a Feeling We’re Not in McCann-Erickson Anymore.” Working out past the edge 198 CHAPTER 10 Only the Good Die Young The enemies of advertising 206 CHAPTER 11 Pecked to Death by Ducks Presenting and protecting your work 236 CHAPTER 12 A Good Book or a Crowbar Some thoughts on getting into the business 270 CHAPTER 13 Making Shoes versus Making Shoe Commercials Is this a great business or what? 296 SUGGESTED READING 307 Contents ix BIBLIOGRAPHY 311 ONLINE RESOURCES 315 NOTES 317 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 323 INDEX 325 FOREWORD BY ALEX BOGUSKY I’m late. Way late. I just got another e-mail from Luke Sullivan asking when this foreword to Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This would be done. I was also late reading his earlier e-mail about being late because there were about 200 other e-mails in front of that one, most of them about something I owed somebody and they were asking why it was late. The thing is, I’m not one of those “late people.” Really. I love work and I hate being late and I pretty much never miss a deadline. I think being late is poor form, so I’m feeling a little like a dolt right now. It’s just that I’ve been so damn busy. So busy I wasn’t even able to fit a martini into my lunch break. Damn. Actually, I haven’t had a martini lunch in my entire career. I eat lunch at my desk. Those three-martini lunches are long gone, and they’ve been replaced with a business that’s more competitive and fast-paced than even the movie industry. These days, there’s simply a lot more to do. The single television spot or print ad has been replaced by the integrated campaign—a single big idea that works across every media. An idea that can xii Foreword by Alex Bogusky draw the consumer out and compel him or her to spend some time with the brand, and maybe even some money. It’s a lot of work and it ain’t for the faint of heart. But as my Dad used to say, “It’s better than diggin’ ditches.” In the end, it’s rarely the deadlines or the amount of work that keep us from getting the job done. Hell, it’s never even the lack of a big idea.You see, new media, untraditional media, integration,—they may be the buzzwords we read every day in the hype that surrounds our business. But so far as I know, they’ve yet to come up with a powerful form of communication that does not at least begin life as words. Failure in advertising most often comes from the lack of this basic skill in finding the right words. The ability to find the words to write down an idea or to present an idea in the most compelling way possible. That’s the wisdom that’s in this book—in words. It’s Bogusky has read it at ם why everybody here at Crispin Porter least once. And it’s why some of the really brilliant and successful people I’ve met in this business have read it two, even three times. Which reminds me, I’m going to read it again. When I get the time. PREFACE THIS IS MY FANTASY. We open on a tidy suburban kitchen.Actually, it’s a room off the side, one with a washer and dryer. On the floor is a basket full of laundry. The camera closes in. Out of the laundry pops the cutest little stuffed bear you’ve ever seen. He’s pink and fluffy, has a happy little face, and there’s one sock stuck adorably to his left ear. “Hi, I’m Snuggles, the fabric-softening bear. And I . .” The first bullet rips into Snuggles’s stomach, blows out of his back in a blizzard of cotton entrails, and punches a fist-sized hole in the dryer behind. Snuggles grabs the side of the Rubbermaid laundry basket and sinks down, his plastic eyes rolling as he looks for the source of the gunfire. 1 Taking cover behind ⁄16th-inch of flexible acrylic rubber, Snuggles looks out of the basket’s plastic mesh and into the living room. He sees nothing. The dining room. Nothing. xiv Preface Snuggles is easing over the backside of the basket when the second shot takes his head off at the neck. His body lands on top of the laun- dry, which is remarkably soft and fluffy. Fade to black. We open on a woman in a bathroom, clad in apron and wielding brush, poised to clean her toilet bowl. She opens the lid. But wait. What’s this? It’s a little man in a boat, floating above the sparkling waters of Lake Porcelain. Everything looks clean already! With a tip of his teeny hat, he introduces himself.“I’m the Ty-D-Bowl Man, and I . .” Both hat and hand disappear in a red mist as the first bullet screams through and blows a hole in curved toilet wall behind the Ty-D-Bowl Man. Water begins to pour out on the floor as the woman screams and dives for cover in the tub. Ty-D-Bowl Man scrambles out of the bowl, but when he climbs onto the big silver lever, it gives way, dropping him back into the swirling waters of the flushing toilet.