Living Life Based On a Three Word Headline.

It's been quite a while since I left the big, bad world of advertising and, although I don’t miss it too much, I am still drawn to every form of advertising I see, hear or watch. It’s one of those professions that, once it gets into one’s bloodstream, it never, ever leaves you.

Starting out as a young, ‘junior’ copywriter, I had visions of one day writing award-winning ads for the likes of Coca-Cola, the holy grail when it comes to getting a campaign credit on your CV.

Unfortunately, I never reached those lofty heights.

For some reason, my creative directors thought I would be good at writing (read selling) for those most awful of ‘grudge purchase’ products, namely petrol and tyres. While with Ogilvy & Mather in both the UK, New Zealand and Australia, the behemoth global agency held the accounts for Dunlop and Shell, and so it was to these clients I was assigned the task of coming up with catchy, slick headlines that would capture the consumer’s attention.

Petrol.

Grudge purchase no 1. Technically, as a product, this one really sucks given that it's dirty, environmentally unsound and, the company’s behaviour in 3rd world countries has always been rather questionable, also it’s hideously expensive.

We only begrudgingly purchase their product when that little gauge on the dashboard of your car races towards the E symbol in no time flat, leaving you standing in front of a pump or bowser, feeding your thirsty vehicle through an industrial-strength hose. While that golden liquid pours into a seemingly bottomless well, you stare mesmerised as the $ signs whizz around at three times the speed of the amount of fuel spurting from the nozzle.

“Write us an inspiring headline/ slogan”, I was commanded, and so I did. I actually revived this beauty. 

YOU CAN BE SURE OF SHELL.

Yeah? Really?

Why re-invent the wheel, I thought, why not simply drag a long forgotten Shell campaign out of the archives? With that, “You Can Be Sure Of Shell” was reborn. The client thought it was a cracker, and it was adopted worldwide to convince motorists that this was the fuel for them. Actually, reading between the lines, the only thing you can be sure of is that you will be spending upwards of $3000 a year on a product that is exactly the same as all the other brands on the market!

Tyres.

Grudge purchase No. 2: A big, black rubber thing with a hole in the middle. Take your vehicle in for service at the dealership where you bought it, and you can be absolutely sure that, during the day, you will receive a call from that dealership.

 “Just checked the tyres mate, and I hate to say it, but they are all basically shot. Best you get a new set, as one can never be too safe, wouldn’t you agree? Oh, and the spare tyre is not looking too flash either, so we’ll put you down for five new ones, shall we?”

There went about $1,200 that you weren’t expecting!!!

So I toiled the Dunlop account and, unbeknownst to the rather rotund marketing director who looked ominously like one of his own products, inadvertently gave me the idea for the headline during a long and laborious briefing. “We need our customers to stick with our brand because we make superior tyres which stick to the road when it’s wet.” Thanks, Mr Rotund, I think I’ll just write a three -word headline that says simply, 

“Stick with Dunlop.”

I was carried around the boardroom shoulder high in recognition for my advertising prowess.

Sigh, it's such a shallow industry.

Feminine Hygiene.

Grudge purchase no 3. Why was I assigned to work on what we in the industry call Fem Pro. products? I have no idea, but I did get to work alongside a brilliantly talented female art director who went on to become famous in the industry.

Long sessions with Johnson & Johnson’s marketing team, who gleefully spread their unbranded products across the boardroom table. Pads, tampons, and min-tampons all need names and packaging designs that would make women flock to supermarkets and reach for their overpriced, overtaxed products.

Extended, boozy lunches followed where my art director and I got hopelessly drunk while scribbling notes on napkins until we supposedly ‘cracked it’.

Bingo after being seven sheets to the wind …we had a hit !

For the pads, they will, from this point on, be known as New Freedom and for the mini-tampons, they will be packaged in a sexy flip-top box and shall bear the moniker “Lillettes” (adapted from the little people in Gulliver’s Travels). Once again, we were the toast of the town!

We went on to create television commercials and print ads, depicting happy women frolicking across daffodil covered meadows, playing tennis or having a lazy lunch with their female friends. All looked blissfully happy and content with life knowing that they were ‘safe’ during their cycles. Cynicism knows bounds in the world of advertising.

I still see these brands in supermarkets across S.E. Asia and muse that I wish my books had the same staying power that these brands seem to have.

How clever I thought myself over the years, writing ‘clever’ campaigns convincing the consumer to purchase products and services that, in all honesty, they really didn’t need or indeed afford. Over the years, campaigns for banks, tobacco, luxury cars and overpriced apartments followed, to which I applied my talents with undisguised gusto. Even though I hate to admit it, I did have a rather passionate love affair with the industry, as it paid well, afforded me time off for really, really long lunches, and, if one kept winning awards, gave free rein within the agency.

I never did get to work on Coke or that other terribly sexy brand of footwear, Nike. I don’t think I have ever purchased one of their products emblazoned with that ubiquitous and all-too-recognisable swoosh.  I never felt the need to be an unpaid walking billboard for a company whose products are manufactured in sweatshops across Asia. However, their advertising agency, the highly regarded Weiden and Kennedy, created what I believe is the greatest copy line ever written; the brilliantly simple, “Just Do It “

Oh, how I wished I had come up with that immortal phrase that covers absolutely everything that Nike’s products stand for. And so, rather than wearing their shoes, T-shirts or shorts, I simply adopted their slogan as my lifelong mantra.

“Should we buy that house? Is it out of our budget range? “Just Do It”

“Perhaps we should put off that trip to Japan this year. Nope. ”Just Do It”

Should I sell my thriving Ad agency, move to a tropical island and become a novelist? “Just Do It”

Seems a little shallow to base all of my big and small decisions on a three - word headline, but so far, it's worked for me, and really, I am still an Ad guy at heart, even though I live my life based on someone else’s slogan.

Paul v Walters is the author of six novels and an anthology of short stories. His latest offering, RITUAL, was released at the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival in late 2025.