When I was a fledgling writer, I had the thrill of working alongside ad-god Luke Sullivan. This week, a full decade later, we came full circle when I interviewed Luke on my podcast at the time, The Naked Career.
Long before Luke wrote Hey Whipple, Squeeze This, he was spouting pearls of wisdom in meetings and hallways. One pearl that always stuck with me: write 100 headlines for every 1 that you actually need.
Two years of hanging on Luke’s every word influenced my writing style, and working style. When I moved to NYC in 1995, I was given a spectacular assignment: a campaign for BMW Motorcycles. As the most junior writer in the office, I was quite aware that I only had a small window of time to prove myself before the more senior writers would swoop in and out-write me. So I channeled Luke as I wrote.
The BMW client wanted 8 ads, and following Luke’s advice, I wrote these 800 headlines. Some won awards, some suck bigtime, but I’m including them all in this PDF in the spirit of full disclosure. (Also in the spirit of disclosure: I’ve never ridden a motorcycle.)
This writing exercise reflects a few of the things Luke taught me:
Radical Truth #33: Work ethic trumps talent.
Radical Truth #34: Applause is approximately .003% of success.
Radial Truth #57: You are not done paying your dues.
After the campaign ran Luke sent a very sweet congratulatory note, which meant the world. But really, the campaign was more of a testimony to his writing mentorship. He didn’t even have to work with me on the assignment to have influenced the result.
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Friggen brilliant! An old muse of mine was also into quantity before quality. I still write one page before I tackle the day… about b.s., taking out trash, road rage, kid stuff… whatever. It gets mind primed. told some jr’s about this method and their eyes glazed over. Still, always will push work ethic over talent any day. Cheers!
bk
I had to read the book to get Luke’s wisdom.
It’s nice to see that I’m not the only one working with massive volume. I’ve found over the years that I’m usually the only writer in the shop with 40 or so lines pined up on the wall and about 400 more on my word processor.
The older I get, the easier the mediocre lines are to write but the really good ones still take a solid effort.
Sally, my buddy saw your 800 BMW headlines in ad school and tried to do it for Listerine breath strips. While I only was able to crank out 687, it was one of the more useful things I did in school. Thanks for the inspiration.
Brock
Super interesting.
I’m a BMW motorcycle rider and I was also working in advertising in the mid-90s in NYC. I remember getting a repair made on my cycle out in Huntington, NY. (The largest seller of BMW motorcycles on the East Coast.) The owner started chatting me up and asked what I did for a living when I responded, “Advertising.”
I also remembered Fallon Berlin winning some awards for their motorcycle print. (the ads featured in this article)
I asked him what he thought of them and if he felt they were effective.
“Those ads sucked. Didn’t move the dial one bit. And I can guarantee you one thing. They were written by someone who never rode a BMW bike in their life. I pay for those ads as a franchise seller and I can tell you this. Total waste of fucking money.”