Meme Marketing Psychology w/ Katelyn Bourgoin

There's this advice that comes from the kind of the social growth gurus that I just patently disagree with, which is like, try to be everywhere. Take your content and break it up. And like every blog post can be like 90 other pieces of content. That's horseshit. You can take one good blog post and turn it into 90 shit pieces of content, or you can focus on like one platform and actually learn the nuances of the platform, build relationships with people that are on that platform. Let's blow up the internet from the basement to the higher net. Scroll and tap in there, we ain't done yet. Let's blow up the internet.

How do you build trust on the internet? Hit him with the good question. Let's start it.

Okay. So that is a— it's a big question. And the thing that I like to think about trust is that you can build trust and you can borrow trust. And borrowing trust is typically faster. It's not long— it's not as longstanding and kind of as valuable as built trust. But so let's say hypothetically that you've posted something great on social. There's some people that agree with you, and then some thought leaders, people who are really, really well respected in your industry, are sharing it and commenting and agreeing. That's borrowed trust, right? Like when we see somebody we already know and like, already trust, sharing somebody's content, then we're more likely to be interested in that person, more likely to check them out, maybe follow them. And the trust that we have in that kind of person we originally trusted, it kind of gets globbed on to the other person. So that's borrowed trust. Now, of course, brands do this. They work with influencers. They bring in experts to run research studies for them to be able to give them data they can share with their products. So how do you build trust yourself? You know, if you're not borrowing it, it's essentially— there's a few spokes. There's being trustworthy, right? Putting out truthful information and putting out products that actually do what you say they're going to do. So many entrepreneurs and founders, that's one of the things they struggle with. They make these grandiose claims about their products or they're working with them if they're a service provider. That they can't stand up to. And so that's one way to kill trust. So I'd say being trustworthy, number one. Another thing is just repeating something, right? So there's this thing in buyer psychology called familiarity bias, where we are more biased to like something if we are familiar with it. There's also kind of a related concept, the mere exposure effect, meaning the more times we're exposed to something, the more we come to like and agree with it. So repeating something over and over and over again, somebody might not agree the first time that you say it, and then you say it another 10 times and suddenly they start to think, yeah, that's true.

So that is one of the big lessons that you've taught me. And I think I've sent this tweet or a quote of yours to a dozen different people, which is like, every time that you tweet something, even if you've repeated it, it's somebody else's first time seeing it, essentially. Like you, you can't repeat yourself enough on the internet, uh, especially as you're growing. Like I've, you know, done this with memes make millions as I, you know, I first kind of came up, uh, found that idea from you when I was writing the book. And, uh, it's just so powerful. Like, you know, now other people say it, right?

Mm-hmm.

And I've seen it in other blogs and, and whatnot. It's like that wouldn't have happened if I didn't start saying it first. And so, you know, if I wasn't annoying and being willing to do that and being willing to repeat myself, uh, that's the only way to get the message out there. Uh, it's, it's repetition.

But you do this all the time related to trust, right? Like you talk about the success stories, like you'll share, you know, a founder posted this meme when they just brought in 3 new clients or somebody posted this, now they've got a big contract. And so not only are you sharing the idea and repeating it, but you're also validating that it's true by sharing case studies and stories and customer success, also really important.

Yeah, 100%. And I think, um, just by like showing more of your life, um, and, and showing the failures and the success as well. Like I write about a bunch of failures that I've had and I write about a lot of like personal stories as well. That's something I was just talking about with my community earlier was just like LinkedIn, right? For example, is the least authentic place in the internet, I would say.

Right.

The least authentic place. And so if you're willing to basically be authentic on LinkedIn, you stand out. So posting photos from events, posting real stories, there's a reason why all that stuff goes super viral generally is because like you're arbitraging on the fact that everybody else is saying I'm humbled and honored, right? So yeah, I think like being authentic on the internet, really, it just comes down to being like your real self and sharing that with the internet. The good, the bad, the ugly.

Absolutely. Absolutely. We, I mean, this, you know, coming back to buyer psychology as well, one of my favorite concepts, and there's way too many cognitive biases or heuristics because they're called behavioral scientists. They're just like any other academic. They want to get a paper out there. They want to get something named after them. And so there's lots of ones that are kind of like overlapping, a little bit nuanced. But my favorite one I've discovered is called the Pratfall Effect, which is this idea that we actually like people more, and brands, and products when they're slightly flawed.

Yes.

Not flawed in a way that makes their use bad. So let's say that like, you know, you wanted to use a product and it kept like glitching. That's not the kind of flaws that we like. But flawed in a way where we realize they're kind of, they're human and they're imperfect just like we are. And so when I discovered that one, I was like, thank God, because how many typos have I sent out in emails? How many times have I sent an email that I wasn't supposed to send that's missing half the content? Like, we do this all the time and we sweat it and we think that it's gonna make people judge us harshly, when in fact the Pratt-Felt Effect shows that actually being flawed publicly, when it's not something that diminishes your credibility. Yeah.

Yeah.

It's not like, you know, I'm supposed to be able to be a mathematician and I can't add 4 4. That's not the thing I'm talking about. But if that mathematician that we respect and like, wow, they're, they're so impressive. If they were to be doing an interview and mistakenly spill coffee on themselves, we'd actually like them more. And so, you know, share stories, share your, like, share your failures. People will like you more.

Yeah. I, Definitely find that to be true. I trust vice signaling over virtue signaling every day. You know, even with people like Elon out there, right? He's not perfect. He has his public failures, his many marriages and whatever, like, you know, people respect him. Nobody's perfect, but it actually makes him more human by having some of these failures.

I just read his book, or well, I read his biography, and it's incredibly long. And it's, you know, I find this thing to be particularly interesting when it comes to how social media is like this hive brain. We make an opinion on a person and suddenly like they're all good or they're all bad. And the reality is none of us are all anything, right? Like Elon has flaws just like everybody else. He also has incredible strengths that have like, you know, created world-changing technologies. And it's fascinating to me how quickly people expect these, you know, these people who are changemakers to be perfect on every dimension. It's like, not only do you have to be an exceptionally innovative, brilliant person, But you also have to be a perfect father and you also have to be, you know, a perfect spouse and like, you know, a good brother. And it's just, we don't hold our own friends to those standards yet. We cast them on these strangers. I think it's very strange.

Yeah. And I think it does make him more likable 100% by showing that he's, he's not this perfect robot. You see this a lot with overly serious CEOs, founder types where they try to act overly serious and like they're on this insane mission from God mentality where they're the smartest people. And it's like, I don't take those people seriously, you know, cuz they're, if they can't joke around, if they can't be willing to admit that they're not perfect, then it's just fake ego. It's just cockiness generally. And so I think being able to joke around, being able to be silly, show your failures is actually like the sign of confidence, right? I'm curious.

Look at Mark Zuckerberg, right? He's had a huge blowup because he's actually, actually like a human.

Yeah. Let's, let's talk Zuck for a sec. Do you think there's a PR team behind him or do you think it's all legit?

I think there's one of two things going on. There is somebody— there's— he got rid of the bad PR team is one possibility that was trying to create this buttoned-up— like, remembering where he started, like, he was a super young guy who started, like, one of the world's biggest companies, and there was probably a lot of motivation to not play into the kind of tech bro kind of perspective people might have had on him. So maybe he had a PR team that was trying to make him really feel like a serious adult, right? Because he was leading this huge company that has huge impacts in the world. But now he's an adult, he's a family— he's got a family, he's been doing this for a really long time. Maybe somebody was smart enough to step in and say, hey, let's stop trying to control the narrative around him so much, let's actually let a little bit of him come through. That's possible. Or he's truly just a robot with no personality, and he's got somebody who's completely massaging and creating this persona. I'd like to hope that it's the first one.

Yeah, I've written about this a bunch. I think it's all real. I think he just, you know, realized like, damn, like this is— I look at Instagram, I see all these influencers, like there's a reason why people like love them, right? It's because they show their personality, they show their true selves. And I think Zuck also got into, you know, working out, hanging out with friends. He, you know, just became a dude's dude instead of just sitting around, uh, you know, on his laptop and watching VR all day. Um, I think it's just like a natural glow up, which has been—

He grew up. Yeah, he grew up. We all do, right?

Yeah, I saw the funniest tweet, which as like a Jewish boy, it was the funniest thing, but it was, uh, it was like, Zuck went through the transformation every young Jewish boy goes through from ages 13 to 16, but it took him 40 years. I was like, that was the funniest thing ever, because so true. Anyways, let's jump into AI. Speaking of Zuck, super geniuses, whatnot. How do you think AI is changing marketing? How are you using AI in your business too?

So I feel like I have a lot of anxiety, and if you— if somebody doesn't feel like they have AI anxiety right now, then they're not paying attention.

That's going in some manual somewhere, DSM manual or something. AI anxiety. I've never heard that term. I like it.

Well, I just— that's just something I just made up, like, on the moment, because this is the way I feel about it. Like, I feel like I have two— like, I have My anxiety is like, you know, three-spoke. It's essentially like, one, I'm not using it enough in the right ways. Like, you know, I guess, like, I know that there's so much more that I could be doing if I were to, you know, my next hire is an AI and automations and ops person. Like, I really need that person on the team, somebody who's like deeply nerdy about this stuff and wants to go really deep because I want to go really deep, but I also have to do all the other things. So that's a priority for me. So partially it's like, I have FOMO. It's like, what am I not using it for that I could be? How am I, you know, not as optimized as we should be? The other thing as a marketer is that I have fear around how marketers and people in general, all knowledge workers, will come to rely on it too much to the point where like we just don't think the way that we're not doing the deep thinking that leads to those like big aha moments. And so like you'll use AI and you'll like ask it a question or get it to come up with like a headline for an ad or like, you know, what should this copy be for the sales sequence? And it's going to be good enough, right? It's going to be like sometimes better than you might do on your own on a day where you have only had like one cup of coffee. You're going to go, that's fine, checkmark done and move on. And I worry that we're going to lose our ability to think deeply and to come to these solutions on our own. And I think that your brain is like any other muscle in your body, it's gonna atrophy if we don't, if we are not consistently putting in the work. So that's a fear I have. And I'm also excited because there's like, you know, there's so many things as a founder, I know you just built an app and it's awesome. I got to play around with it before this call. And I'm excited as a non-coder what this might mean. You know, if my customers have a problem, I can build like a micro solution and I can sell to them for a fair rate and I don't need to build a big kind of like the next, you know, unicorn startup. I can do something on a micro level that serves a small audience and I can do it because it's not going to take me 2 years to build, to build.

Exactly. Yeah. Let's, let's double-click on that for a second. I think that's super exciting as a, you know, start of all these weird niche software that used to be like way too small. And now because software is cheaper to make, you know, you could solve these problems. So like meme marketing, right? Super niche. You know, there's, there's, I mean, there's a lot of marketers in the world, but compared to something like a CRM, like, you know, is, is there's a much smaller TAM, right? And I was able to build it because, you know, I didn't need to go raise VC for it. I could have, but I didn't want to. Right. And then I just launched Elon Email, right? So this is like this AI, yeah, this AI Elon, this ruthless AI Elon. And I, you know, built that in a couple weeks and it's like, you know, these, these things that we could start. Doing is really powerful and why I truly, truly do believe like, you know, distribution more important than ever, what we're doing with marketing. And I also think two things as well, going off what you were saying is like basically like marketing, the only people left are going to be like the craftsmen in both software and marketing. The people who, you know, truly, truly care about their brand, their art, their craft are going to be the only people left standing when everybody can make slop, you know, like the artist of marketing and software. And this year I am leaning into full-on software artistry in every way possible and really doubling down on that. So I think that's, that's going to be the big thing is doing that. And then the other thing, AI anxiety that you're expressing, which I haven't, you know, is like, am I using it enough? Like I'm seeing all this shit about AI agents. I haven't seen one that's actually like legit. I don't know. It feels like all hype right now, but then I hear about ones that are, I'm like, no, that just sounds like a bot. No, that just sounds like software. It feels like AI agent is just crap right now. And you know, or maybe I'm just missing it. Maybe I'm stupid. I don't know. But like, am I just not doing enough? So I think there is that weird level of AI anxiety as well. And then there's a third AI anxiety. Which is like, now that there's so much more you could do, I'm having a lot more trouble sleeping. Like the opportunity cost of putting away my phone, putting away my laptop, right? It's so much higher. I'm personally like, I'm sleeping less. I'm working more.

I feel the same way. I feel like you need to get ahead of it because things are going to change so rapidly in the next 5 years. I really don't think we're prepared, you know, I think 2 years ago when I was playing with ChatGPT and I was like, yeah, whatever. Like, you know, it's not very good yet. Like, it's like, it's like a fun party trick, but like, this is not that useful. But I mean, the other thing about AI is current state is that it's always so impressive until you actually put it in front of an expert. Like, you know, my partner in Unadoreable, Neil, he used AI to help us encode our checkout page. And he was like, he's like, this is the last time I'm using AI. Like, there was just like, it was just riddled with problems. And then I was doing some research on ADHD, which I've recently been diagnosed with. And I was asking some questions about what somebody with ADHD should be eating in their diet. And it like said all these things. One of the things it said was to avoid coffee. And then I was like, that's interesting. It's like, based on the research I've done, coffee is actually an important stimulant for people with ADHD to take advantage of. Like, oh yes, actually you're correct. So I think like sometimes, you know, if you're, if you have an expert reviewing the answers, it's still often wrong. You know, there's a lot of hallucinations, but it's the rate at which it's improving is scary.

Yeah, it's, it's really fun right now. Uh, my favorite use of AI is actually like talking to it while I'm in a car and or on a walk in the park. So, you know, I was driving, uh, me and my wife were driving down to Florida, uh, a couple weeks ago. Like, you know, you can only listen to so much music and podcasts before you go bonkers. And so at one point I just like put on ChatGPT and like any question I was like, hey, ChatGPT, how does my car work?

That's fun.

You know, just these stupid things like, oh, how does the engine work? Because like, I don't know, I don't really know. My dad's explained it, you know, maybe when I was 16, but I don't really know, like explain it. Or like when I'm in, you know, in a park or like asking about, you know, trees or the history of New York, like that to me is, is what I'm really excited about. And then of course I'm using it for work in different ways and like automations and stuff. But, um, I don't know. I like the accessible knowledge at any point. I, I, I'm curious, have you been paying attention to the differences between Claude and OpenAI's marketing? I think they're very, very different. And personally, I was a very big fan of Claude's. I still am. Like, I think it, they've done a really good job with the design, done a good job with the marketing of it. But I'm not sure. And like, I, I, I'm not sure who's going to win this one or, you know, it feels like opening up.

I didn't pay attention to their marketing. I think that says something about the promise of the product. Like on both, like, I don't even think I did anything but click the sign up free button on both websites. Right. Because there's so much word of mouth happening about these products. Initially, you know, ChatGPT was the one that everybody was buzzing and humming about. So I had to account for that. And then I'd hear people talking about Claude being better for certain tasks. And I was like, I don't really want to go learn another thing and pay for a second subscription. So I'm not going to. Check that out yet. And then eventually I was like, you know what, I want to be— if it is truly better, like one of the use cases I hear it's better for is often writing. I'm like, if it is truly better, then I want to be able to take these kind of like mega prompts that we've created for some of our products with ChatGPT, and I want to try them with Claude and see if it actually is better. And sometimes the output is better, but it really depends, which is the funny thing. But I would say that it speaks to the testament of the product. Now, as a marketer, does you know, there's always this kind of like divide, especially in the tech world around like, you know, a good product doesn't need marketing. And then there's marketers that are like, well, yeah, no, it needs marketing.

Yeah.

I think with these products, I think when you're true and there's, there's these truly game-changing products right now, I think people are just so curious that they're probably not actually like from a product marketing perspective. Like I think that the product marketers are probably sweating those websites hard. And if you look at the scroll data, most people are probably not scrolling at all. They just go straight to sign up and they just want to try it and get their hands dirty. So, but I do think to your point, I think there's a battle that's happening and it's going to continue to happen and the marketing will start to matter because I think there's a lot of negative PR about OpenAI and I've not heard that level of concern and fear around Claude. So I think they're doing a good job of either containing it or switching the narrative where they feel like the safer, more friendlier option.

I mean, I couldn't even tell you who the founder of Anthropic is, which I think they've done purposely. It's like very big contrast to the, the very famous founders of OpenAI.

Mm-hmm.

Usually I'm all for founder-led marketing, but when your founder is getting hit nonstop with PR crises, it could, it could, it could really hit you back. That being said, I think OpenAI still, you know, it's extremely profitable. It's doubled profits this year, I'm pretty sure, or doubled revenue at least. So, hey, what do I know? I'm not Sam Altman, but I'm curious.

I don't think he'd make good memes, by the way.

No, no, I don't think so. He doesn't.

He's good to be in them, but he's— Oh, he'd be great at them.

He's very passive-aggressive in his tweets, it feels like. So maybe. I don't know. Curious, how big's your team now and like what's kind of, what's kind of going on in your world and what are you looking forward to this year?

So my team is tiny still, so it's myself and as of recent, a contract writer that I've been working with is on with us more full-time. And I've got a part-time virtual assistant who's kind of a Jill of all trades, helps with a lot of different stuff with the newsletter backend, setting up landing pages and things like that. She's also pretty good at design, so I got lucked out there because she can help with graphics and things. So that's the team. But I, it's woefully too small. So I definitely want to hire at least one more full-time person. The hope is to find somebody in an automation, AI, and ops role. Somebody who's deeply systems-oriented can, you know, explore some of this stuff for us because I'm in the process now of doing some customer research for a new product that we want to build. And I'm trying to determine, is this going to be an education product? We've historically been a media and education company. But I've always been a believer that like, you know, the best educational content is only needed when you can't provide a tool or a template or something that'll actually do it for them. Right. Or at least get them 90% of the results with like 10% of the effort. And so figuring out like, are we, you know, is there a software solution that our audience could use and do I want to go down that road? So that's the next hire. Cause there's a lot of immediate stuff that they can help take off our plates. And there's kind of some future-looking stuff that I hope to build.

Nice, nice. That's awesome. Where did you find your VA?

This is just a random question, but I found her years ago on Upwork, and she's worked with me between 2 to 3 different companies over the years. She's phenomenal. I think I got really lucky. I've asked her a number of times to help me find somebody else like her because she's only part-time. By her choice. She's a full-time mom and so she only works a couple hours in the evening and she's awesome, but that's not— I need more time. And she's, she, I don't know, she's maybe she's worried that she's going to lose her job, but she never will. I will keep her forever.

That's funny.

But she, I haven't been able to find somebody else that's like her.

Yeah. I, uh, curious, want to talk more about different platforms, what you're kind of bullish on, where are you spending your time?

Yeah.

This year?

From— so thinking logically about like, you know, the conversation about AI and attention and, you know, founder brands, there's— we're going to see and we're already seeing it, this massive, massive like growth of written content because it's just so easy to produce right now. And so primarily my platforms have been Twitter and, you know, now X. And I've toyed around like, you know, I was on Threads like checking it out when it launched. I went on Bluesky checking it out when it launched. I get more, I get more traction on LinkedIn as of late, not in terms of impressions, but in terms of actual like buyers, people, customers, they're more likely to come via LinkedIn than Twitter. And Twitter is about half, double the size of LinkedIn. So written content, I've focused primarily on those two channels. My next goal is to start doing video. I'm trying to figure out how I want to approach that. Do I want to do Do I want to do, you know, talking head style video? Do I want to do a podcast and like cut it up into clips? Like, what does a format look like? And more importantly, what's the, you know, what's the premise? I wanted to create something that would be episodic, something more like a show than just like a bunch of like random ramblings. And so with video, that's going to perform well on both those platforms. Most of them are trying to go video, like, you know, they're really giving a lot of visibility video. But then I'm thinking I'll also start playing a bit more on Instagram. I don't know if I'll do TikTok. It's obviously a really great channel to be on. I just don't know if— I feel like I just can't handle one more thing I'm going to be addicted to.

Yeah, yeah, I get it. Uh, ADHD person here too. So it's really interesting. Both of us are writing first. I would say everybody are super surprised you could build a profitable business in 2025 with no real video. Like, sure, I have Instagram and TikTok, but like they don't make me money yet, you know, a little bit here and there, but everything's just writing, newsletter, Twitter, LinkedIn. Um, yeah, you, Reddit even like, um, you know, I'm, I'm starting to dive deeper into video too because why not? But if you're just starting out for people listening, like if you're just starting out and your natural talent is writing more than video, like you don't have to do both. It's so hard to do both. I remember actually you tweeted this a while ago, was like, you didn't start posting on LinkedIn until you hit like 100K on Twitter, right?

Yeah, I know. There's this advice that comes from the kind of the social growth gurus that I like just patently disagree with, which is like, you know, try to be everywhere. Like, you know, take your content and break it up. And like every, every blog post can be like 90 other pieces of content. And I'm like, that's horseshit. Like each platform has incredible nuance. To what works well on that platform, to the formats. Like, you can take one good blog post and turn it into 90 shit pieces of content, or you can focus on like one platform and actually learn the nuances of the platform, build relationships with people that are on that platform. And for me, I mean, I keep calling it Twitter, I'll try to call it X, but like, like the smartest and most successful people in the world hang out there and they actually interact there with other people. Exactly. They're not doing that on LinkedIn. They're not doing that on TikTok. They don't have fucking time for it. And they're scrolling, but they're not actually— you can't actually go and start a conversation, have any hope in hell that anybody's gonna reply back to you. Whereas on Twitter, that happens all the time. Right. And so it makes no sense. Like for me, it's like, why would you, depending on what you're trying to build and what your product is in the world that we're in, it seems like it's the obvious place to be. And so while other people are looking at. You know, oh, there's all these other new channels that are coming online now. I'm just thinking like, okay, focus, right? Like, yeah, what's working well? How can I double down?

100%. Exactly. Like, Twitter has the highest density of wealthy, successful fucking geniuses, you know, at the end of the day. So if you're in B2B SaaS marketing, stuff like that, um, it's such a good place to be. For something like CPG, not, not the best, right? It's okay, but it's not the best.

Yeah.

For, you know, something for TikTok tweens, probably not good. Or, you know, if you're a singer, you should probably be everywhere. But for B2B SaaS, for SaaS in general, it's, it's the place. I love that the idea of this year is saying no, focusing, doubling down on, on all that. Like I'm at 32 on Twitter, like. I mean, let me get to 100, 200, you know, like, uh, why am I trying to be on, you know, every fucking platform, right? So it's, it's a, yeah, something to think about for sure.

Like the type of people that can follow you on Twitter actually be influenced by your work tend to be, like you said, of like such a, they're powerful people. They're people that can, you know, really depending on what your business is or what you want and what your career aspirations are, people that can really, really make an impact, right? Like, why not spend time hanging out with those people?

I know, 100%. Like, Twitter has landed me, you know, partying with Peter Thiel and billionaires. LinkedIn has gotten me nothing except for, I mean, it's gotten me some money, but like, hasn't, I've never like met anybody cool on LinkedIn or like, on Instagram, I think I've met some like drug dealers, but that's about it, you know, TikTok, never met anybody, a single person except for some weirdos who like send DMs. Um, yeah, it's Twitter's like, if you want to make internet friends and meet powerful people, it's, it's, it's the best place to be and like just make friends in general. Like it's so much fun.

Now you don't have to answer this, but like I have a hypothesis that you are the, you know, ghost memer for some very, very big accounts on Twitter that like to share a lot of memes. Some in particular that share a lot of memes that have a lot of I've had this kind of hunch that you might be the ghost memer. Do you do any ghost memeing?

I have run over 35 accounts. Me and my team runs over 35 accounts. And then, you know, we have all the people using our software too. And so whatever meme templates that we post on there, they end up using. So yeah, we're, we're running quite a bunch of accounts. We do daily memes and memes as a service. For all sorts of founders, startups, VC, billionaire-esque types. So yes, I will not name names.

People who are building rockets, perhaps? People who are building rockets?

People who are building all sorts of things.

I know you have to be very close, but that's my hypothesis. I don't know if it's true.

Yeah.

I just think that, you know, people only have so much time to find memes and make memes.

They only have so much time. And when you have more money than time, it's a pretty easy leverage opportunity.

Mm-hmm.

So yeah, it's, um, can't name names, but working with a bunch of cool clients, um, building dope shit.

Mm-hmm.

All across the world. But yeah, I, I am curious. I, I would love to hear your take is why, why humor works so well in marketing, like the buyer psychology side of things. Like I don't have that psychology background, you know, I took AP psych. I just know that when people make me laugh in marketing, like I remember it and I, you know, trust them more and I like them. But like, what's the psychology behind that? Why are memes, you know, and humor working in marketing?

So there's a couple, there's a bunch of stuff going on as per usual, but like one, there's actually the humor effect, which is that we're more likely to remember funny and entertaining information. So if you present something and you give it in a funny way versus a boring way or an entertaining way, we're going to remember it more likely. If it comes in the form of something humorous or funny. So it's more memorable. And of course, in marketing, if you're spending money on marketing, you want to get mindshare, right? You want to be top of mind when somebody's thinking about the type of problem that your product or solution solves. So there's that piece. But the other thing about humor is that so often, if you think about some of the best funny ads, you know, the ones that are like really, really iconic— one of my favorites is "You're not you when you're hungry," right? Those Betty White ads. Like, Snickers is still running those campaigns almost 19 years later. I think I did this like big study on this. They did a ton of customer research to come up with that, and there's so many different approaches and applications that they use it across all their different markets. And I think when they launched that campaign, they've always been the number one selling candy bar in the US, but they had started dropping pretty radically, and they were really worried that they were going to lose their spot. They may have even gone to number two. And with the launch of that campaign, they like burst up, like sales went up like 19% and they're back in number 1. And the brilliance behind humor when it's in, you know, in the right format is it often is really an anecdote on a very human problem, right? And most of the funny ads are showing a fear, anxiety, something that we as humans kind of like know and understand, but they're framing it so that it's funny instead of fearmongering. And so I recently created this new product. It's all about helping people to understand and fix their messaging called Painkiller. But it dives into this idea that the most effective messaging is always messaging that presents a solution to a problem. And if you want to present your product as a solution to a problem, there's a couple of ways you can do that. You can like be like really like kind of like doom and gloom and be like, you know, cancer, you know, cigarettes cause cancer and like, you know, impotency and like all these things. And people are like, ugh. But when you present it in a really funny way, it's more likely to actually get people to pay attention. So you can take things, you can take a message that is around the negatives of the problems that your customers are experiencing and you can wrap it in humor and then you're delivering the message. The core message still goes through. So with Snickers, it was like the core message is we're tribal creatures. We are terribly afraid of being ousted from our tribe. Because there was many, many, many centuries, you know, millennials, where we as humans, if you got ousted, that means death, right? So like, we're really afraid of that. And so when people get embarrassed, when they're worried about public speaking and things like this, it's because there's this human innate fear you're going to be ousted from the tribe. So Snickers caught on to that with the "You're not you when you're hungry," which is this idea that when you're hungry and you make mistakes, those mistakes can make people judge you unfairly, right? They can make people dislike you. They can make people, you know, they can lead to embarrassment or like lost opportunities. and they tapped into that very primal fear with a really funny slogan and really funny ads, right? So I think that what humor does and why it's so effective in marketing is it allows you to basically scare people while making them laugh.

I love that. Yeah. Something that I found while writing Memes Make Millions and working with so many clients was the idea that the best memes come from the problems in your niche. And so, you know, I read this in my book, but like, if you tried paying me $100,000 to make a meme about hockey, I'm sorry, I know you're Canadian. I couldn't make a meme about hockey, right? I could make startup VC ones all day and night. Most, you know, a lot of niches I can that I understand, but hockey, I don't know a single thing, right? And so it really comes from understanding the problems deeply. And that's why, like, it looks so cringe sometimes when, like, some brand will make a meme about, like, something that they, they don't understand. And it's because probably some, like, They, they just let the intern who never like, who never walked in and, you know, and just, just do it. And so you gotta have somebody who deeply understands it, understands the problems that, that people face, the day-to-day activities, the fears. Exactly. The fears. And I really do think that's such a good point is like, it's how to address fears in a, in a funny way. You could think about that with health and, and stuff like that is Brian Johnson is, you know, a fantastic marketer doing a great job with this is, you know, talking about his nighttime erections and all this, you know, this funny stuff.

Like, I'm laughing like, yeah. He's not trying to be serious, but he's not trying to be funny.

Yeah, he tweeted today like, more, uh, mortality is for little bitches. Like, you know, everybody's terrified of dying. Like when it comes down to it, it's a very human fear and it's, it's getting him attention. You know, I just, we just watched, uh, his Netflix documentary last night. It was, it was great. And so he's, he's leaning into the humor because that's what gets attention and helps people remember him. So. Yeah, I think that's a really good point around, around the problems. I love it.

Yeah, it's basically taking medicine that people need to take and just coating it in sugar, right? Yeah, yeah. It's a lot more palatable.

Yeah, I do like my vitamin gummy bears a lot better. Exactly. It's definitely better. Yeah, I'm really excited. It does feel like the meme marketing is picking up. Shit's going crazy and a lot of fun. So I'm excited for this year of all sorts of random shit. Let's talk buyer psychology for a second. You know, jumping into kind of your specialty around things. Why does somebody press buy? You know, like, I know that's a big question, but like, and obviously it's to solve a problem, but like, it's a lot deeper than that a lot of the time, you know, it's, it's not just, I want to solve a problem. It's, I like this guy maybe, or I, you know, I'm excited about this. So why does a person press buy and how can you make them press buy more?

So my thinking on this is really influenced by Bob Mesta. And if people have heard of Jobs to be Done, or you've ever watched— there's this famous video with Clayton Christensen where he talks about why people buy a milkshake. He kind of goes through the entire journey of buying a milkshake. Well, the person was actually sitting in the restaurant doing the interviews for the people that actually bought the milkshake. And it's a big big burger franchise, either McDonald's or Burger King, probably McDonald's, but they don't say specifically. But the person who was actually sitting in that burger restaurant doing the interviews was Bob Mazda, and he's the co-architect of the Jobs to Be Done framework. And he essentially explains how you can understand why somebody buys. So of course it's different for every person and every buying journey, but there are, there are lots of similarities across buyers. And if you can figure those out, then you can be so much more effective in your marketing. And there's a couple of things from his work that really like, you know, were foundational for me in directing how I think about marketing. One is that every buying journey has— it essentially follows a timeline very much like a movie, right? Like there is a trigger event. It is the moment where that person, something happens that makes them realize, I have a problem and I need to solve this. And oftentimes when that happens, they don't actually go actively looking for a solution yet. They're just kind of firstly aware of the issue. And then they're more likely to kind of like passively notice things in their environment that might solve the problem. Then usually something will happen, another event that will make them go, you know what, this is a problem, I need to start looking for a solution. And then they'll start searching for a solution. That's where we as marketers tend to get in front of them, right? Like we're trying to get in front of high-intent people. But if you understand what the trigger events are that might lead somebody to be interested in a product like yours, you can sometimes use those as leverage and get in front of people way sooner before they start actively looking. Before it becomes really expensive and competitive to get in front of those high-intent people. So then we go into decision mode. We're kind of like weighing different options. We're looking at this option versus that option, trying to narrow down what we're going to choose. We buy the thing, we use the thing, and we evaluate it and we say, did I get my job done, right? Because essentially we buy products and we hire service providers because we have a job to do and we're hoping that they can help us make progress in some way. And if you don't understand as a brand what job people are hiring you to do for them, then it's really hard to deliver that outcome. And it's always very nuanced, right? Like we talked about earlier, there's opportunities for super niche narrow solutions now because there are very specific jobs that a small portion of the population might need to get done. But that portion of the population is big enough that it can make for a great business. For a small team.

100%. The internet is now big enough where even your weirdest, tiniest problems can help make you a living. It's, you know, the Kevin Kelly 1,000 true fans. It's the same thing with software now. You don't need, you know, 100,000 customers. You can survive and live a very nice life with a few thousand or less, even if you're charging a lot, right? So yeah, I think that's really important. And it's something that, you know, I've, I think we've both done well is like, I don't rely on paid ads at all. I don't do paid ads. And maybe, you know, if If somebody was searching, what's the best meme marketing tool? And I had, you know, mine on Google Ads, maybe that would do well. But I, you know, I'm getting in front of people before they're worrying about it, right? On Twitter, on LinkedIn, in this podcast even, right? Is getting in front of the marketers before it's, you know, they're about to lose their job.

And you're getting in front of people at the exact trigger moment, right? Because if you think about, let's think about those from people who are going to use your software, but also people who are potentially going to make clients at the agency. Like, what's happening with the trigger moments happen for them, it's typically going to be they see a peer, somebody that they respect, maybe an adversary, post something that gets a lot of traction, gets them a lot of attention. Everybody thinks they're funny and cool. And now they're like, fuck, I want to be funny and cool.

Oh, I have a very funny story about that. So I was at Hereticon, you know, a conference, and I sit down next to my friend Gabby. And there's a seat in between us and, uh, we're just talking and somebody sits down and, uh, it turns out it's the founder of Substack, Chris Best, right? And he asked me what I do and I told him, you know, I run a meme software, your competitor Beehives on it.

Mm-hmm.

And he just goes, I was like, yeah, like they have 4 accounts on there. They're hilarious. Like they're killing it. Signs up immediately, you know, like signs up super fast. They start posting memes. But yeah, people, people want to be funny on the internet. People want to get followers, you know, that's, that's the name of the game and, and convert, convert them.

So, yeah, then I think memes are such an amazing vehicle for sales pitches because they don't feel salesy.

Exactly. Exactly. It's, it's really interesting. So there's meme ads, right? Which are like ads that are memes. And then there's a ton of organic memes. And what we're seeing now, I think, is like A lot of memey stuff is like, it's, it's not saturated. It's still not saturated. Like you could still be funny.

A lot of brands don't do it. They think they need to be serious. I think our cast is serious.

Exactly. And, and there's also other cool softwares popping up like Reelfarm. I really like, it's basically like an AI UGC creator and he did a good job with it. I think there's a lot of like AI UGC where they're all like stiff. These are like hot Gen Z girls and guys. Like, there you go. And it's like you know, like kind of like sexy skimpy, like kind of thing. And it works, you know, well, and you know, stuff like that feels so real. And, you know, marketers are just taking advantage of that stuff. So Realfarm, there's like Faceless Video, another one where it's just like Temple Run video style shit. Right. And so being able to make things feel as natural as possible as a marketer, uh, cause at the end of the day, like you want to be natural. It's not like you want to trick people. You want to be natural, but you also need to make money. And so it's. This combination. You don't want to be overly corporate and boring, but you also need to make money. So there's some combination there and you always want to appear as natural as possible.

So, and because of this, like, because of the way that memes typically work, there's such a good vehicle for communicating one specific emotion, right? Like I'm working on some ads right now for this, this new product Painkiller. We're going to have some lead magnet ads and our lead magnet is this GPT that we created called the Ouchie Pain Finder Bot. And so essentially it asks you a few questions and then you go, it will like deliver what your product, what your potential customer's pain points are like. They're like what we call their urgent pains and then also the nagging pains. And oftentimes the nagging pains, those are the ones that they're not like, you know, hunting for a solution for right now. But again, if you can get in front of them with the right message, then they are going to pay attention. And so we're working on, working on some ads for this and I'm using a meme style ad and it's that, it's a recreation of the, the Distracted Boyfriend. That Distracted Boyfriend ad is so beautiful, right? From a product perspective, it's like, this is the thing you're using right now, the current girlfriend. And you know what? You could be looking over at this thing. It's like way better thing, right? It's just, it's so, it's such a clear expression of What you're doing right now is not optimal. Look at this. And so for ours, it'll be like the boyfriend. It's going to just have like meme letters. It'll say you on the kind of like current girlfriend, the one who's annoyed because he's looking at the other way. It'll say, you know, old school research tools. And then over the sexy girl that the guy's looking at, it'll say, you know, our free research bot, you know, or free research bot. So it's such a simple way of communicating The value proposition, which is like that you wanna trigger that fear of people when they see it go, shit, what I'm using right now isn't as good. There's something else. There's something else that I should be paying attention to and I don't know about it yet. That's like such a beautiful way to express that. Whereas like, I'd have to like, without that meme, without the kind of like core emotion that it's expressing, communicating that would be potentially boring, potentially like detailed. That meme says so much with so little required.

Yeah, yeah. Why use big words when small words do trick? Why use small words when meme does trick? Yeah.

Yeah.

Just keep it simple, you know? Well, that was all my main questions. This was a ton of fun. It was really nice being able to chat. Guys, if you're listening to this still, I appreciate it. And go check out Caitlin's work. It's helped me a lot, like I said, with understanding the importance of buyer psychology and repetition. You know, I, I pride myself on being good at coming up with terms, but they didn't really catch until I started repeating them. Right. And I was afraid to repeat the ideas at first, but now I repeat them all the time. Memes make millions. Cringe is the new cool. Elon email, all this stuff. And you'll notice a lot of alliteration in there too.

But alliteration is a powerful wallet opening technique.

It is. It is. This was a ton of fun, Kaelin, and I'll talk to you soon.