Low Budget, Big Impact: Crafting Video Ads with Humor

0:08Hello and welcome to another episode of the duct tape marketing podcast. This is John Jance. 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 best-selling authors, top influencers, e-commerce giants, and industry-leading coaches achieve remarkable success. Deliana Venn, tripling membership signups, and exceeding launch goals. So, Emily, welcome to the show.

0:46Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. So first, I need a visual. What is a penguin cat? Well, a 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. And very memorable, right? Yes. Which is half the battle, right? It is. It is. So 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?

1:26Comedic content? Yeah. Yeah. I think it's a term so let's define that what is comedic content I know that sounds like a silly question but I think we ought to ought to sort of have your take on it yeah so just to be clear I'm a behind the scenes writer of comedy so I'm not going to do stand up on this podcast oh you've done some you've done some I know you have 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 5 today. Yeah. In terms of what is, what is comedic content?

2:01I 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 is more of like a mindset behind your content rather than just tell a bunch of quickie little jokes because that can get very repetitive very quickly and actually hurt your brand.

2:32Yeah. So from a connection, people connection standpoint, and obviously potential customer connection standpoint, why do you think comedy is such a great tool for that? 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 sort of like the ultimate no 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.

3:06And 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. There's probably some brain chemistry in there too, right? I know if I want to pick me up, I just go watch Nate Margazzi for about five minutes, you know, and I feel better, right? So there's probably some science to it there, right?

3:34Yeah. 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. So if somebody's sitting there thinking, okay, yeah, I've got to 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 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 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 i always tell people you know in creating core messages um you know we want to we want to we want to communicate like what's the problem that you promised 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 a great way to say you get me, right?

4:48You get me. Yeah. It's the ultimate shortcut, I think. 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. I do. 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 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 just kind of the same thing you're like, yeah, this is totally you.

5:37It did, does do a lot of, you know, picking on the son-in-laws was easy. It does do a lot of, I think, connecting. Right. Yeah. 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 yeah i mean so the 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.

6:30Oh, 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 do you have a specific example of one that you've done like somebody came to you and and what you and 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 yeah we um 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.

7:29And I'm like, awesome. You're not getting any lighting. You're getting my friends who are competing 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 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 running those video ads. And the responses that we got were amazing in terms of in the comments and everything.

8:02And nobody was like, oh, this was made for$5. People just thought that they were an enjoyable, fun concept. It's funny, but I'm sure you wish you had$50 ,000. But do you think sometimes the constraint is actually a benefit? Oh, totally. Yeah. I mean, it depends. You never have enough money to get it. You never have enough money or time. That's true in 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.

8:42Yeah. It's just one more key grip can eat up a lot of budget, right? Totally. Yeah. Do people come to you for one-off projects quite often? Or how often do you actually help them develop a brand voice that might involve humor because it's appropriate? Yeah, we have a mix of both. In the copywriting side of my business, we tend to have lifelong kind of clients. 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. They tend to be coaches and consultants and solo conneurs where capturing the voice and the energy of that person is so important.

9:23And so many of our clients, they are innately 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 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. So a lot of industries, I think, makes total sense for comedy to be a part of it.

10:03People expect that, for example. But there are some industries, not so much. Feral home, accountants. however could an industry like that use comedy as a real differentiator you know because it's not expected yeah i mean of course i mean look at look at insurance companies not not a fun topic yeah they sell but boy that you know that shot of moms was funny 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 issues and made them playful and fun.

10:49Where in her industry, like most of the things targeted to them is like hot supermodels in front of an airplane selling lawyer coaching. You know, we've all seen skits where people are trying to do, here's the writer room, right? They sit around the table, throw jokes. No, that's terrible. No, okay, that's a good one. I mean, is your process anything like that? I mean, yeah, it's pretty similar. Honestly, to get to a new, a good joke, you have to throw out a hundred 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.

11:25I think there is a misconception. Like you see a, you know, hour long standup 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 little bit came from somewhere else, right? Exactly. Eventually stitched together after bunches of it bombed, right? Right. Yeah, exactly. There's a lot of silent comedy nights to make that really good special, yeah. And you won't have an answer for this.

11:59This 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 in exactly the same way. Same words, same body language. And, you know, so is that just, again, I don't expect you. right yeah i don't know i mean that's that's the one unpredictable thing with with comedy is like context matters so much you know um but yeah so who knows what was going on yeah before your speech they have zero control over yeah so do you feel i was joking when we before we even got started i said i expect you to be funny um for the show uh 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?

12:57I mean, do you feel some pressure from that? 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 standup comedian. So yeah, I don't, that doesn't bother me too much. Yeah. Have you had, we've talked about your win. Have you had some things where stuff just seemed like it was going to be awesome and it bombed? I mean, we've had that on set where like a joke or like an idea that I had, it's like, oh, it's not really like landing. You have to rewrite it in the moment because it sounded funnier on paper or even seeing new opportunities like the way the actor was presenting it.

13:36Like, 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 a script it's written on set and that's rewritten in the editing bay as well so yeah and i imagine some actors take liberty with yeah they'll just like yeah they'll do stuff so they say they're you know i've we've had the problem where an actor came on set and oh they just really weren't giving what i wanted and then then you do have to kind of make the performance happen in the editing room which is not ideal but it does happen yeah then you have of Robin Williams where you're like, I have no idea what he's going to say.

14:21Right, exactly. Dream for those. 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 effort do you have to put on the front end? Because my experience is most clients can't tell you who makes an ideal client and why. 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, what that person is going through.

15:09so 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 my parents 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.

15:44That was a skill I actually learned in that world. Yeah. 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 people, it's just gotten easier to do. Some more people are doing it. How would you kind of talk about the state of video and its place in the marketing channels, if you will? Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, kind of two minds of it in some ways it hasn't changed.

16:20And the fact that it's so powerful and so important and 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 visible on video, like there's kind of no way around it anymore, I would say.

17:03Yeah. You know, I think when it first started, 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, that 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 one of the more significant changes that we're experiencing in marketing right now. 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 Loom and those kinds of tools to connect.

17:47Yeah. 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 in any other platform and commenting. I mean, is that equivalent to in your world? Is that like the heck we're in the audience? Yeah, I guess it's pretty similar. So, Evelyn, I appreciate you taking a few moments to stop by the Ductate Marketing Podcast. Where would you invite people to connect with you and find out more about your funny penguin cat videos? Yeah. Check us out on penguincatcreative.com or scrappyads.io. And you can hit us up on Instagram or LinkedIn as well.

18:27Again, 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. That sounds great. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it.