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The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast
Low Budget, Big Impact: Crafting Video Ads with Humor
00:20:23
How to craft engaging, high-impact video ads with humor, even on a budget. Boost customer connection and conversions today!
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- [00:01]
A
Let me ask you a few things. Do you feel like you know what differentiates your business from every other business out there? Can you confidently charge a premium for what you offer? Are you working from a plan, a marketing roadmap that allows you to know precisely what to do next? Look, don't worry if you can't answer yes to any or all of these questions. You're not alone. See, marketers today get so focused on the tactic of the week staring them right in the face that they forget to look at the big picture. The overarching strategy needed to consistently grow their business. Over the years, I've worked with thousands of businesses helping them do just that. Create the perfect marketing strategy and plan that gives total clarity about what to do next, confidence to charge ahead and charge more, and complete control of the marketing tactics they choose. I would love to help you and your team do the same. Look to find out if our Strategy first program is right for you. Visit DTM World Grow and request a free consultation. That's DTM World Grow.
- [01:20]
B
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing podcast. This is Jon Jantz. My guest today is Emily McGregor. She's a seasoned creative with over 20 years experience in video sketch comedy marketing and leading dynamic teams. As the founder of Penguin Cat Creative, her copywriting agency, she has crafted hundreds of high converting marketing funnels and campaigns. Her work has helped bestselling authors, top influencers, e commerce giants and industry leading coaches achieve remarkable success selling out events, tripling membership signups and exceeding launch goals. So, Emily, welcome to the show.
- [01:58]
C
Thank you so much for having me. Appreciate it.
- [02:00]
B
So first I need a visual. What is a penguin cat?
- [02:03]
C
Well, penguin cat, technically it's right behind me there. It is a penguin and a cat and it's an adorable logo. It's basically a penguin with cat ears and whiskers for people not watching on video. Yeah.
- [02:17]
B
And very memorable.
- [02:18]
C
Right.
- [02:19]
B
Which is half the battle, right?
- [02:20]
C
It is, it is.
- [02:22]
B
So I, I said before we got started, you pitched me kind of three ideas for the show and I'm going to mash them together because I like them all. So we are going to talk about video. But you have a background in comedy and specific. I don't know, Is this a term? Comedic content?
- [02:38]
C
Yeah. Yeah, I think it's a term.
- [02:41]
B
So let's define that. What is comedic? I know that sounds like a silly question, but I think we ought to. Ought to sort of have your take on it.
- [02:49]
C
Yeah. So just to be clear, I'm a behind the scenes writer of comedy so I'm not gonna do stand up on this podcast. I haven't, actually. No. I'm like, very not. I'm like, I've directed a lot of comedy. I have a lot of patience for comics. I think it makes me a better director. But, yeah, don't ask me to do my type five today. Yeah. In terms of what is. What is comedic content? I think it can mean a lot of things. I think, especially when it comes to marketing and things, I think there's a tendency to be like, oh, comedy is just jokes and it's just like punchlines and, you know, set up punchline, set up punchline, things like that. And especially with marketing, I think it's. It's important to think about it as more like humor as a whole and humor more as an ecosystem, as a tone, as a voice, as more of, like a mindset behind your content rather than just telling a bunch of quippy little jokes. Because that can get very repetitive very quickly and actually hurt your brand. Yeah.
- [03:44]
B
So from a, like, connection, people connection standpoint, and obviously potential customer connection standpoint, you know, why do you think comedy is such a great tool for that?
- [03:56]
C
Yeah, I think it's. I think there's a lot of reasons. I have, like, a million reasons. I'll try and cut it down. I think a big one is it's. It's sort of like the ultimate know, like, trust, like, shortcut, I think, because if you can talk about somebody's, like, pain or what they're struggling with in a funny way, you're really showing them and not just telling them that you deeply understand that problem to the point where you can make a joke about it and you can talk about it in a way that doesn't make them feel shame or make them feel bad about it. It's like bringing lightness to the problem, which makes them feel good while still highlighting that you're the solution to it. So I think it's a beautiful way and a really powerful way to kind of shortcut a lot of, like, marketing pitfalls in terms of talking to your audience.
- [04:35]
B
There's probably some brain chemistry in there too. Right. I know if I. If I want to pick me up, I just go watch Nate Margazzi for about five minutes, you know, and. And I feel better. Right. So there's probably some science to it there, right?
- [04:45]
C
Yeah. It's like, literally disrupts the cortisol in your body and gives you a dopamine hit, like. Yeah. There's like pure neuroscience behind it, too. Sure.
- [04:54]
B
So if somebody's sitting there thinking, okay, yeah, I've gotta be funny in some of my stuff, you know, like, is there a framework? Is there a formula? I mean, being funny is not easy.
- [05:05]
C
No, it's not. It's not easy. It's, it's sometimes harder. But framework, Yes. I think it really starts with, like, knowing your audience to such an extreme level, like, you ought, you know, that's, that's true. In any kind of marketing, you need to know your audience so deeply. With comedy, you need to take it one step further or a million steps further in terms of really understanding where they're coming from on like a very specific and niche basis and having the confidence and ability to like, go there and make content that will relate to them.
- [05:39]
B
I always tell people, you know, in creating core messages, you know, we want to, we want to, we want to communicate, like, what's the problem that you promise to solve? Don't tell me what you do, you know, what's the promise? And I think it's the ultimate way to say, you get me. And I'm sure comedy, if you make a joke about something that's very common in the industry or very common with your prospect, I mean, that's, that's a great way to say you get me. Right?
- [05:59]
C
You get me. Yeah, it's, it's the ultimate shortcut. I think one, one thing that I half jokingly, but I do honestly think this would be a good idea is to play cards against humanity. But like with your imaginary client that you're selling to and like, I don't know if you know that game.
- [06:15]
B
I do. Yeah.
- [06:16]
C
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But if you play that, you can, if you could guess what they would pick as the funniest thing, like, I think that'd be a good way to try and like, really get in their heads in like a fun, light comedic way. Just, you know, maybe ask HR first.
- [06:29]
B
But the game that my daughter just brought for Christmas this year, and I think it was called something like most likely to. And, and so the idea was most likely to be a serial killer, you know, whatever. I mean, yeah, that and you played with a group and you kind of the same thing. You're like, yeah, this is totally you. It did. Does do a lot of, you know, picking on the son in laws was the easy part. It does do a lot of, I think, connecting.
- [06:57]
C
Right? Yeah.
- [06:58]
B
Do you have an example, I hate to put you on the spot, maybe you don't want to name names, but of some, like, you've had low or no budget and you needed to create an ad, and it needed to, like, you know, compete against people that had lots of budget.
- [07:13]
C
Yeah. I mean, so the thing that I start with that is besides the concept, like, the concept matters so much more than, like, your lighting package or necessarily location and things like that eat up a production budget very quickly. You know, coming up with a concept that does relate to the audience. And in coming up with that concept, if you have no budget, lean into that is the first thing I say. Like, don't fight your budget. Don't try and, like, oh, let's do something. I really have this, like, brilliant idea, and it involves a bear. Like, well, don't. Don't do that idea unless it might be funny with, like, a teddy bear or something. If you can, like, lean. Again, like, lean into that being the joke, then that could work. But don't try and, like, fight your budget in terms of the concepts. Like, think of things that you have access to for free. You know, does your friend own a boat? Awesome. Go film on that boat. It'll add a ton of production value instantly. And think of a funny concept that can work in that. That context. Yeah.
- [08:10]
B
Do you have a specific example of one that you've done? Like, somebody came to you and. And what. You end, you know, with little idea of what they wanted, little budget, and what you came up with, you know, provided results that you think, hey, that was. That punched way above its weight.
- [08:26]
C
Yeah, we. We recently did one for a company. I won't name the company. I don't know if I have their permission or not, but it was a software company, basically, and they. They came to us like, hey, we have, like, $5,000 to make a few commercials. And I'm like, awesome. You're not getting any lighting. You're getting. You're. You're getting my friends who are commuting actors, and, like, we'll come up with a concept, and it's great. We were in California, so we filmed on the beach. We filmed. We faked a campfire camping scene in my backyard with a flickering light bulb that I was controlling with my iPhone. And the ads. The ads did exceedingly well. They, like, doubled their sales this year. And, you know, that's. I can't take full credit for that, but I have partially credit for. For those running those video ads. And the responses that we got were. Were amazing in terms of. In the comments and everything. And nobody was like, oh, this was made for $5.
- [09:16]
B
People just, yeah.
- [09:17]
C
Thought that they were an enjoyable, fun concept.
- [09:19]
B
Yeah, it's funny. But I'm. I'm sure you Wish you had $50,000, but do you think sometimes the constraint is actually a benefit?
- [09:28]
C
Oh, totally, yeah. I mean, it depends. You never have enough money to get. You never have enough money or time like that construction. It's true. In film production, I think a lot of creativity can come with like, okay, here's your very limited sandbox. Like what can you create in that? And I sort of like that process and like that exercise. And I think it can push you to like milk the resources you have and that, that can foster more creativity and fun actually.
- [09:54]
B
Yeah, it's just one more key grip. Can eat up a lot of budget, right?
- [09:57]
C
Totally. Yep.
- [10:00]
B
Do people come to you for one off projects quite often or how often do you. Do you actually help them develop brand voice that might involve humor because it's appropriate?
- [10:11]
C
Yeah, we have a mix of both. Like we on in the copywriting side of my business, we tend to have lifelong kind of clients. Like we make friends with all our clients and they come back repeatedly. And we have from the ground up created voices, especially for a lot of our clients there. They tend to be coaches and consultants and solopreneurs where the voice, capturing the voice and the energy of that person is so important. And so many of our clients, they are innately like funny, vivacious, fun, playful people. And their previous marketing has been bland and boring and just not sparkly like their personalities. So a lot of our work is like really trying to capture and highlight what is there and what makes them exciting and fun and amazing to work with and putting that with a marketing, messaging and strategy behind it. Yeah, and a lot of that just comes from honestly just talking to them, just getting a sense of their personality and turning that into words that can sell.
- [11:08]
B
So a lot of industries I think makes total sense for comedy to be a part of it. People expect that, for example. But there are some industries, not so much funeral home accountants. However, could an industry like that use comedy as a real differentiator? Because it's not expected.
- [11:29]
C
Yeah, I mean, of course. I mean look at, look at insurance companies. Not. Not a fun topic.
- [11:37]
B
Yeah, they sell, but boy, that, you know, that shot of Mahomes was funny.
- [11:42]
C
Yeah. And they all do comedic ads, right? Yeah. So. And we, we've done, we did a set of comedy commercials for a coach for women lawyers. Should sound super dry. But we had a great time coming up with really relatable fun ads that related to their, their issues and made them playful and fun. Where in her industry, like most of the things targeted to them is like hot supermodels in front of an airplane selling lawyer coaching.
- [12:10]
B
You know, we've all seen skits where people are trying to do. Here's the writer room, right. They sit around table and throw out jokes. No, that's terrible. No. Okay, that's a good one. I mean, is your process anything like that?
- [12:22]
C
I mean, yeah, it's pretty similar. Honestly. To get to a new a joke you have to throw out 100 bad or mediocre ones. There's no like real good shortcut. I mean, sometimes you land on something pretty quickly, but there's no real shortcut to comedy. I think there is a misconception. Like you see a, you know, hour long stand up routine and you just think, you know, they make it sound like they're just coming up with it off the cuff and you forget that they've done that literally hundreds, maybe thousands of times before that hour long special, really perfecting and crafting well and every.
- [12:54]
B
Little bit, you know, came from somewhere else. Right. I mean, it was eventually stitched together after, you know, bunches of it bombed. Right, Right.
- [13:02]
C
Yeah, exactly. There's a lot of like silent comedy nights to make that really good special. Yeah.
- [13:08]
B
So. And you won't have an answer for this. This is just an observation I've had. I do a lot of public speaking and I'm always, I'm always perplexed by the idea that some joke that I've used over and over again kills it all the time. And then one audience just doesn't get it. It's like. And I'm like, I did that exactly the same way. Same words, you know, body language and you know, so is that just. Again, I don't expect Cheryl.
- [13:34]
C
Right.
- [13:35]
A
Why does that happen?
- [13:36]
C
Yeah, I don't know. I mean, that's the one unpredictable thing with, with comedy is like context matters so much, you know, but yeah, so who knows what was going on?
- [13:47]
B
Yeah.
- [13:48]
C
Zero control over. Yeah.
- [13:51]
B
So do you feel I was joking when we, before we even got started and I said, I expect you to be funny for the show today. Do you feel some extra pressure? Because I mean, that is like if I'm hiring somebody to create comedic content, they're going to make me laugh. Right. I mean, do you feel some pressure from that?
- [14:11]
C
Not, not particularly. I mean, I think, you know, I know I'm always confident in our ability to make it come out in the work and I don't think anyone's hiring me to be a stand up comedian. So yeah, I don't I don't. It doesn't. That doesn't bother me too much. Yeah.
- [14:25]
B
Have you had. We've talked about your win. Have you had some things where. Where stuff just seemed like it was going to be awesome and it bombed?
- [14:33]
C
I mean, we've had that on set where, like, a joke or, like an idea that I had is like, oh, it's not really, like, landing. You have to rewrite it in the moment because it sounded funnier on paper or the way. Or even seeing new opportunities, like the way the actor was presenting it, like, oh, that's totally different than what I saw. And that's funnier, but it means we need to change X, Y and Z to make it work. So. Yeah, totally. It definitely happens, like, on set things. You know, they. The old adage, it's true. Like, anything in film gets written three times. It's written in the script, it's written on set, and that's rewritten in the editing bay as well. So.
- [15:06]
B
Yeah. And I imagine some actors take liberty.
- [15:09]
C
With, like, yeah, they'll do stuff. So that's. They're. You know, we've had the problem where an actor came on set and they just really weren't giving what I wanted. And then you do have to kind of make the performance happen in the editing room, which is not ideal, but it does happen. Yeah.
- [15:28]
B
Then you have Robin Williams where you're like, I have no idea what he's going to say, but.
- [15:32]
C
Right, exactly. Dream for those. Yeah.
- [15:35]
B
So how much time? And I'm sure every project's different, every budget's different, but it's probably seems to me like it'd be very hard for you to do your job well, or any marketer do their job well without understanding the ideal client. So how much. How much effort do you have to put on the front end? On the front end. Because my experience is most clients can't tell you who makes an ideal client and why.
- [15:59]
C
Right, Right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's like. I would say most of the work kind of comes from doing that understanding and really diving deep into that understanding and asking a lot of. A lot of those questions and finding. Because, like, the comedy really comes from the specifics of that. Like, the specifics of what that character, of what that person is going through. So we do a lot of work to make sure that the comedy is also coming from an authentic place because people can sniff it out really quickly. I gained that skill from. Back in the day. My original work working in comedy was creating, like, geek comedy. Like, comedy for like the nerd world, which is like a thing in like the early 2010s, which is like, as much as I appearance tells you otherwise, I'm not actually into a lot of those things, but they will sniff you out very quickly if things are not authentic. So learning how to make jokes that were authentic, that reached that audience and that were new and fresh, that was a skill I actually, like, learned in that world. Yeah.
- [16:59]
B
So we have had video content probably for 20 years. You know, at the very beginning part, I mean, obviously we've had video for much longer, but in terms of people using it in marketing on their websites and things, how would you say it's evolved? Is it having, like, is it become more important? Is it. Are people. It's just gotten easier to do some more people are doing it. Where. How would you kind of talk about the state of video and its place in the marketing channels, if you will?
- [17:26]
C
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, kind of two minds of it. In some ways it hasn't changed. And the fact that it's so powerful and so important and that it has just become more important. Like reels are so much more important on Instagram than a static post. Like, you're not going to get very far with just static posts. You need to be on there. People more and more want to buy from individuals, from people with a story, from people with a perspective rather than just a cool, shiny thing. Competition is more competitive and the more personality and memorability that you can bring to it. And I think, you know, video is a great way of doing that, especially if it's like, if it is selling, like a person or coaching or something like that. Like, that person does just need to be visual, visible on video. Like there's kind of no way around it anymore, I would say.
- [18:14]
B
Yeah. You know, I think when it first started, it was. It was such a trust builder. Right. It's like I can connect with Emily and she seems like a nice person, you know, in video. Right. I'm finding more and more people using it much farther down the buyer journey. You know, then it's. I don't need to go to the website now. I mean, I might buy something right off of a YouTube called Action. I mean, I think that's probably the one of the more significant changes that we're experiencing in marketing right now.
- [18:40]
C
Yeah, no, that's a good point. Definitely. Yeah. We found clients. Yeah. Using video. Yeah. Instead of just in cold, like all the way through, or like even sending individual personalized videos to client, prospective clients. Things like that using boxer and then or not boxer loom and those kind of tools to connect. Yeah.
- [18:59]
B
So I'm curious your thoughts on this. The. You know there's still. I don't know why YouTube seems to bring out the trolls more than pretty much anybody else and any other platform in commenting. I mean is that equivalent to in your world, is that like the headwear in the audience?
- [19:14]
C
Yeah, I guess it's pretty similar.
- [19:18]
B
So Emily, I appreciate you taking a few moments to stop by the Duct Tape Marketing podcast. Where would you invite people to to connect with you and find out more about your funny Penguin Cat members.
- [19:27]
C
Yeah, check us out on penguin cat creative.com or scrappyads IO and you can hit us up on Instagram or LinkedIn as well. Awesome.
- [19:38]
B
Again, I appreciate you taking a few moments to stop by and hopefully we'll run into you one of these days out there on the road.
- [19:43]
C
That sounds great. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it.
- [19:50]
A
Let me ask you a few things. You feel like you know, what differentiates your business from every other business out there? Can you confidently charge a premium for what you offer? Are you working from a plan, a marketing roadmap that allows you to know precisely what to do next? Look, don't worry if you can't answer yes to any or all of these questions. You're not alone. See, marketers today get so focused on the tactic of the week staring them right in the face that they forget to look at the big picture, the overarching strategy needed to consistently grow their business. Over the years, I've worked with thousands of businesses helping them do just that. Create the perfect marketing strategy and plan that gives total clarity about what to do next, confidence to charge ahead and charge more, and complete control of the marketing tactics they choose. I would love to help you and your team do the same. Look to find out if our Strategy first program is right for you. Visit DTM World Grow and request a free consultation. That's DTM World Growing.