If you can't turn yourself into your customer, you probably

Host: The office smelled of coffee and ink, of deadlines and dreams too big for the fluorescent light. A half-eaten sandwich lay abandoned beside a glowing screen. Outside, the city buzzed with its usual impatience — horns, heels, and hunger. But inside the glass walls of the ad agency, time had slowed.

Jack sat at the long conference table, sleeves rolled up, eyes fixed on a blank page. His laptop cursor blinked like a silent dare. Jeeny stood near the window, her reflection merging with the skyline — poised, quiet, the way calm always is before the storm of creativity.

Host: The rain tapped against the window, each drop like a second lost. The clock ticked. And the brief sat untouched — a simple one-liner circled in red: “Make them believe.”

Jack: “Leo Burnett said, ‘If you can’t turn yourself into your customer, you probably shouldn’t be in the ad writing business at all.’”

He sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “You’d think after ten years I’d know how to do that. But every time I try to ‘be’ the customer, I just end up being a salesman in disguise.”

Jeeny: “That’s because you’re still talking at them,” she said. “You’re not listening.”

Host: Her voice was soft, but it landed like a verdict. She moved closer, eyes narrowing in that way that meant she was thinking not about the product — but about the people behind it.

Jeeny: “Burnett didn’t mean you have to imagine what they want. He meant you have to remember who they are.”

Jack: “That’s easier said than done.”

Jeeny: “No. It’s just harder to fake.”

Host: The rain thickened, tracing streaks down the glass like ink spilling from an invisible pen.

Jack: “You make it sound so… intimate.”

Jeeny: “It is. Advertising isn’t manipulation — not when it’s honest. It’s empathy with a purpose.”

Host: The lights flickered. The world outside blurred into an abstract painting — buildings, headlights, and rain all dissolving into motion.

Jeeny: “Burnett built entire campaigns by talking to the part of people that still dreams. The farmer. The tired mother. The kid with one dollar and a big appetite. He didn’t sell — he understood.”

Jack: “And that’s what made him brilliant.”

Jeeny: “No,” she said, leaning against the table. “That’s what made him human. He didn’t write for customers. He wrote for souls.”

Host: The hum of the air conditioner filled the pause between them — mechanical, rhythmic, almost meditative.

Jack: “You really think empathy can sell something?”

Jeeny: “Empathy doesn’t sell. It connects. Selling is a byproduct. The real goal is recognition — that flicker in the customer’s eyes that says, ‘You see me.’”

Host: He turned his chair slightly, looking at her. “You make it sound like poetry.”

Jeeny: “Good advertising is poetry. It’s rhythm and emotion wearing logic’s mask.”

Jack: “And we’re supposed to be the poets of capitalism.”

Jeeny: “No. We’re the translators of need.”

Host: The room seemed to still around her words — the sound of the rain, the hum of the lights, even the city outside paused in reverence for the truth of it.

Jack: “So how do you do it, Jeeny? How do you ‘turn into the customer’?”

Jeeny: “You stop thinking like a writer and start feeling like a person. You forget the slogan. You remember the moment.”

Host: She reached across the table, sliding the brief toward him. “Who’s buying this product, Jack?”

Jack: “Middle-aged workers. Long commutes. Always tired.”

Jeeny: “Then don’t write for them. Be them. Sit in the traffic. Hear the static of the radio. Feel the ache in your back. Smell the coffee that’s gone cold. Now — tell me what they need.”

Host: He closed his eyes for a moment, his breathing slowing as if following her cadence.

Jack: “Relief,” he said finally. “A pause that feels like freedom.”

Jeeny: “Now you’re writing.”

Host: She smiled — not triumphantly, but knowingly.

Jeeny: “That’s what Burnett meant. Until you can stand in their shoes, feel their fatigue, and still speak with hope — you’re not ready to sell them anything.”

Jack: “So advertising is just empathy with a headline.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. A good ad doesn’t talk down. It kneels beside you.”

Host: The rain began to ease, the first hints of twilight slipping through the clouds. Jack stared at the screen again — but this time, the blank page felt less like a wall and more like a mirror.

Jeeny: “You know, people think writing ads is manipulation. But when it’s done right, it’s communion. You’re not convincing them — you’re reminding them of what they already believe.”

Jack: “That they deserve something better.”

Jeeny: “That they’re seen.”

Host: The silence that followed wasn’t empty — it was charged, like the air before lightning.

Jack: “You ever think about how wild it is that a man like Burnett built empires by understanding everyday people?”

Jeeny: “That’s the paradox of genius — to find greatness in the ordinary.”

Host: She stood, walking to the window, watching the city emerge from its rain-drenched blur. “He knew that you can’t fake humanity. You can only return to it.”

Jack: “And if you can’t?”

Jeeny: “Then you shouldn’t be in the business.”

Host: Her words echoed the quote itself, landing softly, decisively. Jack smiled, nodding — not in defeat, but recognition.

He began typing again. Slowly. Honestly.

And as the sound of keys filled the air — steady, purposeful — Leo Burnett’s words lingered like gospel for the modern age:

“If you can’t turn yourself into your customer, you probably shouldn’t be in the ad writing business at all.”

Because empathy is the art
of translation,
not persuasion.

To sell well,
you must first listen.
To write well,
you must first feel.

The best ads
aren’t written to impress —
they’re written to understand.

And in every great message
that ever moved the world,
there was never a slogan —
only a quiet whisper
that said:

“I know who you are.
I’ve been there too.”