Advertising Slogans: Squeezing the Figures of Speech

This is disturbing to report, but I can't get Mr. Whipple off my mind. You know him: the supermarket manager who used to scold the "ladies" for squeezing the Charmin--and then skulk off to indulge in his secret vice. With only minor variations, the narrative ran in 504 commercials between 1965 and 1989.

So what is it about Mr. Whipple that concerns grammar and composition? Only his catchphrase, "Please don't squeeze the Charmin." That absurdly enduring tag line illustrates the classical figure of dehortatio--which means "dissuasive advice given with authority." It's but one of 35 examples in our new Quiz on Figures of Speech in Advertising Slogans. And that should be the end of it.

Unfortunately, it's not. I'm stuck with this decidedly creepy image of an old fusspot massaging a six-pack of toilet paper. And I'm wondering how on earth Procter & Gamble (now the edgier P&G) ever succeeded in turning a fetish into a massively successful sales campaign.

It turns out that copywriter Luke Sullivan shares my sense of wonder. In Hey, Whipple, Squeeze This: A Guide to Creating Great Ads (John Wiley, 2003), Sullivan reveals that by the mid-1970s (1) Whipple was second only to Richard Nixon as the "most-recognized man in America," (2) the Charmin commercials were "ranked last in believability" by consumers, and (3) the staff of Charmin's ad agency so despised their own creation that they assigned a team "to assassinate Mr. Whipple."

But "the twittering, purse-lipped grocer" was bulletproof. Though almost universally loathed, Whipple sold billions of rolls of toilet paper, leaving the old best-seller, Scott Tissues, stuck to his heel.

So what was Whipple's other secret? Simply enough, it was a strategy that the Greeks had exploited 2,500 years earlier: sheer repetition. Of course, in the classical era repetition was oratorical. Key points were reinforced through anaphora and epiphora, through commoratio, epizeuxis, anadiplosis, and diacope.

By contrast, in the last part of the 20th century (aka the Charmin Era), repetition was feverishly accelerated through incessant 30-second parables on our TVs. The typical middle-aged American has heard Whipple's imperious "Please don't squeeze the Charmin" more than 5,000 times. You might say we've been brain-whippled.

No wonder I can't get him off my mind.

Quizzes on Figures of Speech:

• Quiz on Figures of Speech in Advertising Slogans
• Review Quiz: Top 20 Figures of Speech
• Review Quiz: Rhetorical Terms