Hey Whipple, Squeeze This By Luke Sullivan
A copywriter’s survival guide, written with wit and a healthy disrespect for bad advertising.
The title is a joke at the expense of Mr Whipple, the fussy shopkeeper in the long-running Charmin toilet roll adverts who begged customers not to squeeze the product. Luke Sullivan, a veteran advertising copywriter, uses him as the patron saint of everything tired and irritating about the industry.
Hey Whipple, Squeeze This is his guide to doing better. First published in the late 1990s and updated several times since, it covers how to find an idea, how to write it down, how to sell it to a nervous client and how to survive the whole process with your sanity intact.
It’s written for people making ads, but anyone who writes to persuade will find something to steal. You don’t need to work in an agency to enjoy it, either. Sullivan writes with the warmth of someone who still loves the job.
Pivotal takeaways
- Find the truth first. Great advertising starts with something genuinely true about the product. Clever comes second.
- Kill the clichés. If you’ve seen an idea before, so has your audience. Write it down, then throw it away and keep going.
- Simple is harder. The best ideas can be explained in a sentence. If yours needs a paragraph, it isn’t ready.
- Respect the audience. People don’t owe your advert their attention. Earn it with something interesting, useful or funny.
Why it’s a must-read
At Pivotal, we believe creative and performance aren’t opposites. The ads that convert are usually the ones people actually notice, and Sullivan is superb on what makes work noticeable. His chapters on generating ideas are worth the price on their own.
He’s also funny and honest about the job—the rejected concepts, the committee feedback, the late nights. It’s a comfort to anyone who has watched a good idea get sanded down to nothing in a meeting. You’ll recognise more of it than you’d like.
Some sections lean heavily on print and TV, and newer readers may find the digital chapters less essential than the craft ones. The principles, though, travel perfectly to a social ad or a landing page headline.
Rating: ★★★★☆
Not every chapter will suit every reader, but the best ones are brilliant. Keep it by your desk for the days when the blank page wins. A few pages in, you’ll usually find the nudge you needed.
Your move. What’s the worst advertising cliché you still see everywhere? Share in the comments, and let’s retire it together.