Why the best communications still start with empathy

I picked up Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This back when the communications world was just beginning to flirt with social media. Facebook still felt vaguely collegiate, Twitter was a curiosity, and the idea of a brand speaking in real time was treated as both thrilling and faintly dangerous. Luke Sullivan’s slightly irreverent yet deeply serious guide to advertising made one thing very clear to me. Beneath all the layers of process, KPIs and brand-platforming, the real job remains connection.

The job is to pause someone mid-scroll, mid-sip of coffee, mid-commute, and spark that small jolt of recognition that makes them think, yes, that’s me. Not “that’s clever” or “that’s impressive”, but something quieter and more human.

The line that still rings true

Sullivan gives us a beautifully sharp directive.

“A brand isn’t just the name on the box. It isn’t the thing in the box, either. A brand is the sum total of all the emotions, thoughts, images, history, possibilities, and gossip that exist in the marketplace about a certain company.”

That one line could still sit atop every creative brief in 2025. Back then it meant writing ads that didn’t talk down to people. Now it means crafting stories that earn a place in someone’s life, not just an impression in their feed.

I’ve come back to that line more often than I expected, including very recently, when working on a global sponsorship where the temptation to over-engineer the story was strong.

Listening before speaking

The DNA to Do-Re-Mi tagline I wrote while leading the Corporate Affairs team for Novartis's sponsorship of Eurovision 2025 didn’t come from a brainstorm wall covered in post-its or a clever wordplay exercise. It emerged from listening. From noticing the slightly improbable but very real connection between science, music and shared human emotion, and then resisting the urge to explain it to death.

The phrase worked not because it was smart, but because it felt intuitive. People didn’t need it decoded. They felt it first and understood it second. That, to me, is empathy in action. Not elevating the brand above the audience, but meeting them where they already are and giving them a bridge they’re happy to cross.

It’s also why the line travelled so well. Across languages, formats and platforms, it retained its meaning because it was grounded in something recognisable and human.

The age of metrics, prompts and everything everywhere

With algorithms, GenAI and real-time dashboards swirling around us, it’s tempting to think the rules have changed beyond recognition. We can test headlines in minutes, generate visual worlds on demand, and optimise content almost endlessly. The danger is assuming that speed equals insight.

Anyone with a prompt can produce a dozen versions of an idea in seconds. The real craft lies in choosing which version actually engages someone. Which line lands with a small emotional thud. Which image makes someone pause long enough to feel seen rather than targeted.

I’ve watched teams chase performance metrics and produce work that technically succeeds but emotionally evaporates, leaving tens of thousands of dollars in media spend with very little to show for it. I’ve also seen quieter, more empathetic ideas outperform expectations simply because they respect the audience’s intelligence and emotional bandwidth.

Empathy, not elevation

When Sullivan talks about empathy, he’s not advocating sentimentality or softness. He’s talking about attention. About getting out of your own head and into someone else’s shoes for a moment or two.

His book was never only about selling. It was about noticing something true and translating it into words and images that feel earned. He reminds us that simplicity isn’t blandness and sincerity isn’t naïve. They are the soil from which meaning grows.

This is where a lot of modern communication still stumbles. In the rush to appear visionary, disruptive or hyper-optimised, we forget that most people are navigating busy, complicated lives. They don’t want to be impressed. They want to be understood.

A principle that refuses to age

Every time I return to that dog-eared book, I’m struck by how little the core principle has dated. The tools change. Timelines compress. Audiences fragment. But good creative work still begins with the same deceptively simple question.

What is the real thing to say, and how shall we say it beautifully? The challenge Sullivan left us with remains intact. Don’t simply aim to be seen. Strive to be felt.