Whipple advice

Zac Bodner bodnerzd Luke Sullivan is a cool dude. He has a relaxed, unpretentious style that’s consistently backed up by insight, substance and experience. A lot of his ideas resonated with me, either because I already implement them in my approaches to communication or creativity, or because I aim to implement them in the future.

At the end of the book, he talks about what a cool business advertising is. One where we get to use our ideas to solve problems, or inspire people. One where we get to sit around and think up wild thoughts all day - stuff that people with real jobs dream of. I think that’s a pretty powerful thing to say, and a pretty heady way to frame the creative advertising world.

That’s something I’ll be thinking about a lot this semester. How if you can manage to come up with some interesting things to say and interesting ways to say them - people will pay you for it, and you might be able to produce some change in the world. Who knows.

Here are some of my favorite of Sullivan’s themes and advice, both for advertising in particular and the creative process in general.

When writing ads, talk like you were talking to a friend.

We’re already basically shouting at people with a microphone. LISTEN TO US DAMMIT! Nobody likes that. It’s intrusive and jarring. For ads to be successful, they have to be highly personalized. So the key to achieving this goal is to talk like people who make us feel comfortable. Friends. Lovers. Funny people. People who teach us something but don’t make us feel stupid in the process.

We need to speak in a language and tone that people can relate to. Not like a Harvard Economist. Unless of course, we want to communicate with a room full of Harvard Economists.

Yikes.

Wit invites participation.

This is one of the big takeaways I had last semester with Matt in Creative Strategies. Successful creative advertising is about creating that gap. Just like telling a joke. 1) Here’s the set up. 2) Then you’re like, what the hell is going on here? 3) Then the payoff.

Did you reward your audience with that payoff? Did you make them say, “Oh. What a clever guy.

Thanks for making me think and use my brain Mr. Ad Guy. That’s the only way to stave off Alzheimers, how can I ever repay you?”

Let the audience guess at the joke. Let them add the piece to the puzzle. Let them meet you, not necessarily in the middle, but somewhere. If you engage somebody’s mind, they won’t forget that you did. That’s why we always remember our favorite teacher in high school.

Engage our emotions.

Ah, emotions. Our gift and our curse. They run our lives, for better and worse. They say hate is not the opposite of love, its apathy. I think this illustrates that one of our worst fears is to not be able to feel anymore. To be numb. Even when you’re mad, at least you have some blood going.

At least you have some fire.

When Kurt Cobain sang “Rape Me,” I don’t believe he was saying, “Hey could somebody come and rape me please that would be awesome.” I think he was saying, “For FUCKS SAKE CAN I JUST FUCKING FEEL SOMETHING!” I believe most of us are saying that, and we look to life, planet earth, the media we consume and our fellow humans to provide this for us. So in advertising and all else, make people laugh, or cry, or get pissed. Because that’s how we know we’re still alive.

Show, don’t tell.

This is a key rule in screenwriting, as well as in life and advertising. Don’t tell me what a bad ass you are. Prove it. Don’t tell me how mad our protagonist is when his best friend gets killed, show me how he goes to get the bad guys. This one is going to be tough for me as a wannabe copywriter, because we obviously want to do a lot of telling. But the reasoning stands. People are curious. We don’t want to be told something is true. We want to see proof.

Let the images do the talking.

Luke talks about simplicity. About how the only way to get through clutter is to be simple. (It’s not the only way) About how a good ad pares away everything until you have nothing left but the essence of your message in it’s most simple and powerful terms.

Eliminating words and speaking through visuals is a great place to begin doing this. Hence, a picture is worth a thousand words. This also will be tough for the copywriters out there, because we want to let the talking do the talking. I really love the example from the book of the Volvo made out of a safety pin. They didn’t need to say “Volvo’s are safe.” They used a powerful and clever image, made us say, “Ah ha,” and exited stage left.

If you’re a Copywriter, think like an Art Director. If you’re an Art Director, think like a Copywriter.

In class the other day you (Chad) said that Agencies used to be (and many probably still are) very silo’d. Creatives on the fun floor, Media on the boring floor, Account people on the whatever floor. This is a fragmented and somewhat limited way to approach creative problem solving.

Last year in my Media class, for our case study group we took a similar approach. One person did history, the other background, the other competition, the other SWOT, the other whatever.

When we put all the pieces together the result was disjointed and lacked a cohesion in its theme, direction and message.

If a copywriter can’t envision the scene to put his words in, it won’t be as vivid as it could be. If an art director can’t think of something to say when the two lovers meet at the train station yada yada - same thing.

Shitty first drafts.

Luke brings up Bird by Bird, a book on writing by Anne Lamott. This is a book I’ve read and highly recommend. She shares the same inviting, personal style that Sullivan does. She encourages the writers to write first and think later. To write shitty first drafts. In my attempts at writing and creating art so far, I have found this advice to be indispensable. Write, now. Don’t edit. Don’t be brilliant. Just get some things on paper. Brain dump.

Go back later and edit. Go back later and organize. Go back later and be perfect. A lot of times the need to be witty, insightful and awesome leaves us tongue tied and hinders our production and creativity.

Make your tagline an anthem.

No pressure, but if you pull this off - you’re a legend.

An anthem is a song everybody knows the lyrics to. A song that everybody remembers. One they play at sports games to get everybody hyped up. In advertising, taglines are usually pretty douchey. But sometimes you can do some serious inspiring with one. Luke talks about “Just Do It” making fitness hip. And how it was in large part responsible for a pretty major cultural shift. A lot of people probably got healthier or found some calm or drive in their lives partly through that tagline spurring them on to action.

I’d love to be a part of something like that.

Radio is made for the imagination.

Holy shit I love imagination. You wanna have a bunch of circus clowns eating dinner with Sir Lancelot on a floating hot dog in outer space? Go for it.

Rules suck. Radio is a place where it’s okay to break lots of them and come up with your own.

It’s our safe space, where we can have all the autonomy we want.

Big ol honkin' ideas.

This is the gospel around these here parts. This is what the Creative Faculty at UT Austin and the Advertising Cognoscenti around the globe are preaching.

Don’t think of a print ad. Don’t think of a commercial. Don’t think of an email. Think about what feeds these media. It’s not about a one way loudspeaker. It’s about giving people things to talk about, laugh about, share, get involved with, all that. A good idea can change a life, create value from nothing, even be the difference between finding happiness or not.

I’m very excited at the prospect of the Creative Sequence. I don’t feel like creativity is an inherent talent. I don’t think producing big ideas is either. I think they are skills that can be gained and sharpened through study, perseverance and some good guidance. Not many people get a chance to go to a school like this and learn this art form. I intend to take full advantage.