Low Budget, Big Impact: Crafting Video Ads with Humor written by Jarret Redding read more at Duct Tape Marketing
The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast with Emily McGregor
In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interviewed Emily McGregor, founder of Penguin Cat Creative, a copywriting agency specializing in high-converting marketing funnels and campaigns. With over 20 years of experience in video marketing, comedic content, and creative advertising, Emily has helped bestselling authors, top influencers, and e-commerce brands craft compelling, humor-driven video ads that engage audiences and drive sales.
During our conversation, Emily shared powerful insights on how businesses—regardless of budget—can leverage humor in marketing to enhance customer engagement, build a strong brand voice, and create video ads that resonate. By tapping into emotional marketing, storytelling in marketing, and advertising psychology, brands can stand out in a crowded digital landscape.
Emily McGregor’s expertise in comedic advertising and creative video ads proves that humor, when done right, can be a game-changer in digital marketing strategies. Whether you’re working with a tight budget or looking to refresh your brand voice, leveraging humor can lead to more customer connection, higher social media engagement, and increased sales conversion.
Key Takeaways:
- Comedy is a powerful marketing tool – Humor in marketing creates instant emotional connections, increasing customer trust and engagement. It helps brands stand out while making complex topics more relatable.
- Know your audience deeply – Effective comedy in branding requires understanding your audience’s pain points, language, and humor style to craft content that truly resonates.
- Lean into constraints for creativity – Limited budgets shouldn’t be seen as obstacles; instead, they can inspire innovative, high-converting marketing strategies. Simple locations, clever concepts, and strong storytelling in marketing can outperform high-budget productions.
- Authenticity matters in video ads – Today’s consumers are drawn to real, engaging content. A well-crafted, humorous video marketing campaign builds customer connection and drives social media engagement.
- Storytelling drives success – The best video marketing isn’t just about jokes; it’s about weaving humor into compelling narratives that highlight brand voice and reinforce marketing funnels.
- Test, refine, and optimize – Creating impactful comedic content involves iteration. Even professional comedians tweak their jokes based on audience response—businesses should do the same with their marketing campaigns.
Chapters:
[00:09] Introducing Emily McGregor
[01:12] What is Comedic Content?
[02:32] Comedy Great for Customer Connections
[03:44] Is There a Formula to Funny?
[04:27] Comedy Communicates You Understand
[05:47] How Low Budget Ads Can Compete
[08:49] Developing a Brand Voice with Humor
[09:57] Which Industries Can Use Comedy?
[10:59] The Comedy Writing Process
[13:49] When Jokes Fall Flat
[14:25] Understanding Your Ideal Client
[15:47] What is the Place of Video in Marketing Channels?
More About Emily McGregor:
John Jantsch (00:01.19)
Hello and welcome to another episode of the duct tape marketing podcast. This is John Jantsch. 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.
Emily McGregor (00:38.99)
Thank you so much for having me. it. 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. Yes, it is. is.
John Jantsch (00:41.104)
So first I need a visual. What is a penguin cat?
John Jantsch (00:54.776)
Okay, awesome. And very memorable, right? Which is half the battle, right? So I said before we got started, you pitched me kind of three ideas for the show and I'm gonna mash them together because I like them all. So we are gonna talk about video, but you have a background in comedy and specific, I don't know, is this a term? Comedic content?
Emily McGregor (01:08.718)
Great.
Emily McGregor (01:20.046)
Sure, yeah, yeah. I think it's a term. Yeah. Yeah.
John Jantsch (01:21.634)
So let's define that. What is comedic content? I know that sounds like a silly question, but I think we ought to sort of have your take on it.
Emily McGregor (01:30.902)
Yeah, so just to be clear, I'm a behind the scenes writer of comedy, so I'm not going to do standup on this podcast. I haven't actually, no, I'm like very not. like, I've directed a lot of comedy. I have a lot of patients for comics. think it makes me a better director, but yeah. So yeah, don't, don't ask me to do my type five today, but yeah, in terms of what is, what is comedic content? I think it can mean a lot of things. think.
John Jantsch (01:36.745)
you've done some improv. You've done some improv. I know you have.
Emily McGregor (02:01.708)
Especially when it comes to marketing and things, think there's a tendency to be like, comedy is just jokes and it's just like punch lines and, you know, set up punch lines, set up punch line, things like that. And especially with marketing, think 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.
John Jantsch (02:27.26)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So from a like connection, people connection standpoint, and obviously potential customer connection standpoint, you know, why do think comedy is such a great tool for that?
Emily McGregor (02:35.534)
Mm-hmm.
Emily McGregor (02:44.076)
Yeah, 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. And you can talk about it in 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 marketing pitfalls in terms of talking to your audience.
John Jantsch (03:27.398)
There's probably some brain, there's probably some brain chemistry in there too, right? know if I, if I want to pick me up, I just go watch Nate Margottsi for about five minutes, you know, and, and I feel better, right? So there's probably some science to it there, right?
Emily McGregor (03:31.244)
Yeah. Right. Yeah, right. 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,
John Jantsch (03:42.576)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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? mean, being funny is not easy.
Emily McGregor (03:56.814)
No, it's not. It's not easy. It's sometimes harder. yeah, mean, a framework, yes, I think it really starts with like knowing your audience to such an extreme level. know, that's true in any kind of marketing. 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 a very specific and niche basis and having the confidence and ability to go there and make content that will relate to them in a comedic way.
John Jantsch (04:39.408)
Yeah, I always tell people, know, in creating core messages, you know, 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? Yeah.
Emily McGregor (04:47.618)
Yeah. Right.
Emily McGregor (05:01.164)
You 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. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But if you play that, if you could guess what they would pick as the funniest thing. Like think that'd be a good way to try and like really.
John Jantsch (05:17.005)
I do, yeah, yeah, yeah.
John Jantsch (05:23.142)
Yeah. Yeah.
Emily McGregor (05:27.148)
get in their heads in like a fun light comedic way. Just, you know, maybe ask HR first, but.
John Jantsch (05:31.548)
There is a game that game that my daughter's brought for Christmas this year. And I think it was called something like most likely to. And so the idea was most likely to be a serial killer, you know, whatever. mean, that and you played with a group and you kind of the same thing. You're like, yeah, this is totally you. And it it it did does do a lot of, you know.
Emily McGregor (05:41.777)
yeah.
Emily McGregor (05:45.802)
Mmm. Yeah.
Emily McGregor (05:53.293)
Yeah.
John Jantsch (05:59.014)
Picking on the sun and laws was the easy part, of course, you but it does do a lot of, think, connecting. Do you have an example, I hate to put you on the spot, maybe you don't want to name names, 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.
Emily McGregor (06:00.675)
Ha
Right, yeah.
Mm.
Emily McGregor (06:14.958)
Yeah.
Emily McGregor (06:22.816)
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, let's do something. I really have this like billion idea and it involves a bear. Like, well don't.
John Jantsch (06:37.936)
Right.
John Jantsch (06:50.619)
Yeah.
Emily McGregor (06:57.592)
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 context, yeah.
John Jantsch (07:01.405)
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
John Jantsch (07:21.68)
Do you have a specific example of one that you've done? Like somebody came to you and what you and, 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.
Emily McGregor (07:37.07)
Yeah, we recently did one for a company. I won't name the company. don't know if I have their permission or not, it was a software company, basically. And 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 my friends who are competing actors and like will come up with a concept.
And it's great, we were in California, so we filmed on the beach, 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 doubled their sales this year. And I can't take full credit for that, but I partially credit for 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. People just thought that they were an enjoyable, fun concept.
John Jantsch (08:34.128)
Yeah, it's funny, but I'm sure you wish you had $50,000. But do you think sometimes the constraint is actually a benefit?
Emily McGregor (08:46.168)
totally. Yeah, I mean, it depends. Yeah, I mean, you always, never have enough money to get, you never have enough money or time. Like that's true in construction, it's true in film production. But yeah, like 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. I think it can push you to like,
John Jantsch (08:52.582)
Right.
Emily McGregor (09:13.268)
milk the resources you have and that can foster more creativity and fun actually.
John Jantsch (09:19.004)
It's just one more key grip can eat up a lot of budget, So 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?
Emily McGregor (09:22.786)
Totally, yeah.
Emily McGregor (09:38.198)
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 there. They tend to be coaches and consultants and solo peoniers where capturing the voice and the energy of that person is so important.
And so many of our clients, are innately funny, vivacious, fun, playful people, and their previous marketing has been bland and boring and just not sparkly like their personalities. And 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 I can sell.
John Jantsch (10:38.364)
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 some industries not so much. Federal homes, accountants. However, could an industry like that use comedy as a real differentiator because it's not expected?
Emily McGregor (10:45.646)
Sure, yeah, right. Right.
Emily McGregor (11:02.368)
Yeah, I mean, of course, I look at, look at insurance companies. not, not a fun topic. Yeah. Right. But like they all do. Yeah. 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.
John Jantsch (11:06.436)
Well, that's all they do. You don't even know what they sell, but boy, that shot of Patrick Mahomes was funny.
John Jantsch (11:29.178)
Yeah, right.
Emily McGregor (11:32.654)
ads that related to their issues and made them playful and fun. Where in her industry, like most of the things targeted into them is like hot supermodels in front of an airplane selling lawyer coaching.
John Jantsch (11:42.97)
Right. Yeah. Right. So, you know, we've all seen skits where people are trying to do, here's the writer room, right? They sit around the table and throw out jokes. No, that's terrible. No. Okay. That's a good one. I mean, is your process anything like that?
Emily McGregor (12:02.19)
I mean, yeah, it's pretty similar. Honestly, to get to a joke, you have to throw out 100 bad or mediocre ones. There's no real good shortcut. mean, sometimes you land on something pretty quickly, but there's no real shortcut to comedy. think there is a misconception. You see an hour-long stand-up routine, and you just think they make it sound like they're just coming up with it off the cuff, and you...
John Jantsch (12:08.781)
Yeah.
Emily McGregor (12:27.574)
Forget that they've done that literally hundreds, maybe thousands of times before that hour long special, really perfecting and crafting the joke. Yeah, exactly.
John Jantsch (12:34.362)
Well, in every little bit, you know, came from somewhere else, right? I mean, it was eventually stitched together after, you know, bunches of it bombed, right?
Emily McGregor (12:42.188)
Right, yeah, exactly. There's a lot of like silent comedy nights to make that really good special, yeah.
John Jantsch (12:49.372)
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 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. And I'm like, I did that in exactly the same way, same words, same body language. so is that just...
Emily McGregor (12:51.31)
Sure.
Emily McGregor (13:03.086)
Mm.
Why this time? Yeah. Great.
John Jantsch (13:15.388)
Again, don't expect you to really have an answer to that, but why does that happen?
Emily McGregor (13:16.878)
Right? Yeah, I don't know. 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 before your speech? They have zero control over. Yeah.
John Jantsch (13:30.99)
Yeah, was a different audience. So do you feel, I was joking 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 gonna make me laugh, right? I mean, do you feel some pressure from that?
Emily McGregor (13:43.436)
Yeah.
Emily McGregor (13:58.006)
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. yeah, I don't, don't, it doesn't, that doesn't bother me too much.
John Jantsch (14:07.76)
Okay.
John Jantsch (14:12.154)
Yeah. 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?
Emily McGregor (14:17.528)
Yeah.
Emily McGregor (14:24.074)
I mean, we've had that on set where like a joke or like an idea that I had is like, 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, 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.
John Jantsch (14:26.789)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John Jantsch (14:32.943)
Yeah.
John Jantsch (14:46.342)
Yeah.
Emily McGregor (14:49.762)
Definitely happens on set. The old adage is true. 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 that's for sure. Yeah, they'll do stuff. Sometimes 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...
John Jantsch (15:00.092)
And I imagine some actors take liberty with the script too, right?
Emily McGregor (15:19.244)
Not ideal, but it does happen.
John Jantsch (15:21.35)
Then you have Robin Williams where you're like, I have no idea what he's going to say, but it's going to be funny, So how much time, and I'm sure every project is different, every budget is different, but it's probably seems to me like it'd be very hard for you to do your job well or any marketer to 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.
Emily McGregor (15:24.59)
Right, exactly. Dream for those, yeah!
Emily McGregor (15:35.458)
Yeah, sure.
John Jantsch (15:51.536)
can't tell you who makes an ideal client and why.
Emily McGregor (15:55.15)
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 those questions and finding, because like the comedy really comes from the specifics of that, like the specifics of what that person is going through. So we do.
John Jantsch (15:58.14)
Okay.
John Jantsch (16:19.132)
Yeah.
Emily McGregor (16:21.696)
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, creating like geek comedy, like comedy for like the nerd world, which was like a thing in like the early 2010s. Which is like, as much as my appearance tells you otherwise, I'm not actually into a lot of those things, but they will sniff you out.
John Jantsch (16:38.808)
Yeah. Sure, sure.
Emily McGregor (16:50.06)
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 learned in that world, yeah.
John Jantsch (16:50.128)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John Jantsch (16:56.433)
Yeah.
what?
John Jantsch (17:02.876)
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? it having like, is it become more important? Is it, people, it's just gotten easier to do, so 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?
Emily McGregor (17:31.894)
Yeah, I mean, think, you know, kind of two minds of it. In some ways, it hasn't changed in the fact that...
it's so powerful and so important and it has just become more important. Reels are so much more important on Instagram than a static post. You're not gonna get very far with just static posts. You need to be on there. People more and more wanna 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...
John Jantsch (17:41.305)
Right.
Emily McGregor (18:05.176)
personality and memorability that you can bring to it. And I think video is a great way of doing that. Especially if it's like, if it is selling a person or coaching or something like that, that person does just need to be visible on video. There's kind of no way around it anymore, I would say. Yeah.
John Jantsch (18:23.066)
Yeah, you know, I think when it first started, 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. And I think that's probably one of the more significant changes that we're experiencing in marketing right now.
Emily McGregor (18:29.922)
Yeah.
Emily McGregor (18:39.502)
Yeah.
Emily McGregor (18:46.83)
Yeah, no, that's a good point. Definitely. Yeah, we found clients using video instead of just in cold all the way through or even sending individual personalized videos to client perspective clients, things like that using Voxer and then, or not Voxer, Loom and those kind of tools to connect.
John Jantsch (18:59.982)
Right, right.
John Jantsch (19:03.994)
Yeah,
So I'm curious of your thoughts on this. 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 and commenting. I mean, is that equivalent to in your world? Is that like the head clerk in the audience?
Emily McGregor (19:14.83)
Yeah.
Emily McGregor (19:22.638)
Yeah, I guess it's pretty similar.
John Jantsch (19:25.116)
So Emily, I appreciate you taking a few moments to stop by the duct tape marketing podcast. Where would you invite people to connect with you and find out more about your funny penguin cat videos?
Emily McGregor (19:36.91)
Yeah, check us out on penguincatcreative.com or scrappyads.io and you can hit us up on Instagram or LinkedIn as well.
John Jantsch (19:48.092)
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.
Emily McGregor (19:53.73)
That sounds great. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it. Have a good time.
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