How to Strategically Use Humor in Marketing with Emily McGregor, PenguinCat Creative: Show Notes & Transcript

Post | Feb 24, 2025

Welcome back to Strategic Counsel by ForthRight Business! Looking for Marketing Smarts? You’re in the right place. After almost 4 years of helping to make you savvier marketers, we decided to broaden this podcast to include more business-oriented topics that will make you savvier business leaders.

In this episode of Strategic Counsel by ForthRight Business, we’re talking how to strategically use humor in marketing with Emily McGregor. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and your other favorite podcast spots – follow and leave a 5-star review!

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***Strategic Counsel by ForthRight Business*: How to Strategically Use Humor in Marketing with Emily McGregor, PenguinCat Creative**

Humor in marketing is great in theory. But, it’s not great for every brand. If you’re using humor in your marketing, it needs to be strategically on-brand for who you are (brand story) and how you communicate (brand character). We wanted you to learn from a super creative screenwriter turned copywriter who knows all aspects of humor, so we welcomed on Emily McGregor, the Founder & CEO of PenguinCat Creative and Scrappy Ads. They’re a creative agency of marketing geniuses who craft copy so charming it’ll make you dance your pants off. Here’s a small sample of what you will hear in this episode:

What are the different types of funny?
How do you know if humor is right for your brand?
What are some examples of brands using humor?
How has comedy changed over the years?
What’s something Emily changed her mind about?

And as always, if you need help in building your Strategic Counsel, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at: ForthRight-People.com.

Check out the episode, show notes, and transcript below:

Show Notes

How to Strategically Use Humor in Marketing with Emily McGregor, PenguinCat Creative
- [0:29] Welcome to Strategic Counsel by ForthRight Business
- [1:44] Connect with Emily on LinkedIn, at PenguinCatCreative.com, at ScrappyAds.io, and on Instagram @PenguinCatCreative
- [3:42] How did she get into the humor space?
- [4:42] What did Emily create at Comediva?
- [5:32] What are the different types of funny?
- [7:19] How do you know if humor is right for your brand?
- [10:52] How do you mitigate risk when using humor?
- [12:52] What are some examples of brands using humor?
- [16:38] How has comedy changed over the years?
- [18:35] What are the pitfalls when it comes to using humor?
- [21:15] How do you find your tone when using humor?
- [26:20] What markets are untapped when it comes to humor?
- Quick-Fire Questions
- [28:02] Where will Emily’s next vacation be?
- [28:12] What’s something she changed her mind about?
- [28:35] What’s her mantra?
- [28:42] Connect with Emily on LinkedIn, at PenguinCatCreative.com, at ScrappyAds.io, and on Instagram @PenguinCatCreative
- [28:05] Make sure to follow Strategic Counsel on your favorite podcast spot and leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts
- [29:15] Learn more at ForthRight-People.com and connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, and Linke dIn

What is Strategic Counsel?

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Transcript

Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.

Anne Candido 0:02
Welcome to the strategic Counsel by Forthright Business podcast. If you’re looking for honest, direct and unconventional conversations on how to successfully lead and operate in business, you are in the right place in our discussions we push on the status quo and traditional modes of thinking to reveal a fresh perspective. This unlocks opportunity for you, your team and your business. Now let’s get to it.

April Martini 0:28
Welcome to the Strategic Counsel podcast. I am Anne Candido and I am April martini, and today we tackle a topic that we frequently address, actually with our clients, and that is how to strategically use humor in marketing. And the word that I want to point out, if you didn’t already hear the emphasis in my voice before we move forward, is strategic. Humor in marketing is all well and good, as long as it’s strategically on brand for who you are in your brand story and how you communicate through your brand character. There are so many times we come across humor in marketing that leaves us scratching our heads. We would call this humor for the sake of humor, and this is where it really ends up missing the mark. But when you align humor to your brand and then intentionally choose what type of funny you’re going to be, all of this can work in your favor. Yeah, and

Anne Candido 1:15
I think it goes without saying, even though it’s very disappointing to many that not every brand actually has the space to use humor and be funny, and that might be like a bit of a buzzkill, because a lot of people use humor to drive things like familiarity and relatability, but we’re going to talk about that specifically today, and we’re going to talk about other ways that you might be able to drive that if humor may not be your thing,

April Martini 1:40
yes, and we’ll definitely get into more on how to do this and check yourself also in today’s episode. But before we jump in, we have a special guest to help us with this topic today, someone who has built her career on marrying humor to marketing, and that is Emily McGregor of PenguinCat Creative. So Emily, welcome to the show, and please introduce yourself and give the listeners a bit of your story. Thanks

Emily McGregor 2:01
so much for having me. I’m happy to be here. I run penguin cat creative, where you’re a copywriting agency, and we’re in the middle of kind of shifting a little bit more into a consultancy, helping brands, strategically, like you said, use humor to sell a ridiculous amount of stuff. My background is in screenwriting and filmmaking. Then I used to run a company called comedyva, where we did viral videos, and like the early Wild West of YouTube, and like the 2010s so we’ll just show to Amazon, and worked with big brands like Pepsi and Univision. So but yeah, after that, I was not in my 20s anymore, and wanted to actually make money fancy that, and pivoted in the marketing, I realized pretty quickly that a lot of the skills that I had acquired during comedy actually applied very well to marketing. We’ve worked on over 1400 funnels and have helped mostly women and a few cool dudes make over 109 million in revenue today,

April Martini 3:01
awesome. Well, I think it is so interesting. And I would love if you could go a little bit deeper, because I’m sure our listeners are like, huh, filmmaking and screenwriting to marketing, and then where does the humor live, and how do we manage all of that? So if you could just kind of get into that, a little bit of how that manifested itself how you got to where you are. And I know you already said I leveraged that background, but just talk to us a little bit more about

Emily McGregor 3:27
how they go together. With screenwriting, the thing that kind of came most naturally to me was really capturing character and writing dialog, and that applied really directly, because most of my early marketing work was with coaches and consultants, where the person is the brand is the person you’re working with. Like it’s really one to one. So, so important to capture just that energy, that vibe, that voice, that character, to make sure you’re attracting the right kind of person to that right coach. Kind of on the flip side, honestly, like learning more of the strategy behind marketing and really making sure that audience experience. Like, every line, you’re tracking that audience’s experience. You’re keeping in mind like, Okay, how problem, where are they like, where? What is their cultural experience? Like? What is their experience with your brand? And how are they experiencing that? Like, line by line, story by story, and taking them through that process, learning those skills actually help my screenwriting, because it’s also a very structured way of writing and keeping that like audiences experience line by line through the script, which is like, not usually how screenwriting is taught, but I think marketing actually helps you become a favorite screenwriter, because you’re so tapped into like that audience experience.

Anne Candido 4:37
Well, I’d be absolutely remiss if I didn’t ask, because I’m sure everybody wants to know, is there anything out there that we could go watch that you’ve done if you want

Emily McGregor 4:45
some some good 2010s internet humor, you can check out comedy on YouTube, and you can see we have a you remember the Gangnam Style? Oh, yeah, we did a Klingon style version that like. Like, I don’t know, it got a ton of millions of views. I don’t even remember the number. We have a parody of the Banff Girls Club, which is like a parody of the Bad Girls Club reality show, but with like, Katniss and Hermione and the Vampire Slayer, like, all living in a house, and then Bella from Twilight. And so we just shout on Bella all the time,

Anne Candido 5:23
pretty much. So we’re gonna check that out. I mean, well, I think it kind of begs the next question, because there’s so many ways of being funny, right? And so I’d love if you could tell us a little bit about, how do you think about funny? Me, me. And April always kind of give the spectrum of you could be Aha, funny or haha funny, where you could be, like, self deprecating funny, but give us a little bit of 101, on, on funny, as

Emily McGregor 5:47
many tones as there are in anything else, there’s, like, tones of comedy, and like more combinations of tones, I think is something we’re seeing a lot more, because it used to kind of just be Banana peel on a sidewalk. There’s like pratfall, like broad humor. There’s Yeah, like you said, the self deprecating like, oh, let’s make fun of ourselves so we seem so relatable and cute. There’s like surrealism, which is like I would put like the old, old spice commercials with, like the, look at your man now look back at me. Like, very bombastic and wild. I think now we’re seeing more of a trend of, like, grounded surrealism, where there’s, like, something a little off, but it’s filmed very naturalistically. Yeah, there’s the more like character based humor, where you’re really just the character is the funny bit, or like celebrity. There’s also, you know, categories of celebrity humor, of like, the fact that it’s the celebrity in the role is the humor. If you just cast a regular person, there would be no joke there. Yeah, looking at like trends going on now in terms of like social media and like what people are thinking is is funny, is also like another place to look at, like, what is popular and what people are reacting to, I think

April Martini 6:57
so we talked and you brought up already, kind of the connection with the audience, and we said strategy from the beginning. And so I think Anne set us up nicely with, like, talk about the different kinds of humor. So hopefully everybody’s minds are like, oh yeah. Like, I can think of that like that, and that like that. And on the other side of that, though, all of that can get our clients into trouble, and that’s one of the things that Anne may have addressed, and we set this up in the beginning. So how do you figure out one if humor is right for you, like you said Anne in the beginning, it’s not right for everybody and every brand, but then, if you do decide it’s right for you, how do you figure out what is authentic to you? In order to build that in and make it work for you and have it be authentic?

Emily McGregor 7:36
There’s like, two big pitfalls in humor that I see people run into a lot. One of them is the just assuming humor is like, one kind of thing. Obviously I thought, like, it can be so many different things. It’s also like thinking that humor is a shortcut in your marketing, like, oh, we’ll just make it funny. So then people will laugh, and they’ll like us, and it’ll be great. Like, it’s it’s easy, we’ll just make it funny. On the flip side, I think if you are going to use humor, you have to do all the same marketing things. You just have to do them, like, 10 times more than you do when, if you’re doing just regular marketing, or you’re just doing like, something inspirational, you have to do the same process and dive even deeper into like, especially like, what your goal is with this marketing, I think people can really lose sight, especially as you’re brainstorming comedic ideas, and people like, Oh, that’s really funny. Oh, that’s really that’s cute, that’s charming, that’s That’s great. You can get really lost in the sauce of like, Oh, that’s so funny. It’s like, Yeah, but is that the right kind of funny? Is that actually, like accomplishing our goal, and what we’re actually trying to say about the brand and the like emotion we’re trying to elicit and the feeling we’re trying to give across with that humor and similar, like with the audience. Like you need to know your audience at such a deeper level. Like, I recommend playing cards against humanity, like fake play and against like the person you’re advertising it to. And if you don’t know, like, what card they would pick, like, you probably don’t know your audience well enough to do humor yet, like, you really need to know which card they would pick to be, to know them well enough to be able to do that humor. And in terms of, like, deciding what is authentic looking at your audience, like, for example, even if you’re like, Oh, we’re marketing to moms like, okay, like, what kinds of moms? Like, is this the kind of mom that would be that would think, like, calling your kid an asshole is funny? Or is this the kind of mom that would need something like a little softer and they would want to, you know, joke about staying up at 3am or something like that, or having like, vomit on their shoulder? Like, what kind of humor? Because you could totally alienate your audience if you’re picking the wrong kind of joke for even, like, that segment of the population, yeah, I think

Anne Candido 9:43
that’s what makes it a little bit risky, right? And I would say, like, humor can be very polarizing, especially I come from the PNG world, so I actually worked on the Old Spice campaign that you alluded to. And I could say, from my my recollection of really trying to dig in and try to figure out, how are we going to try. Addition that brand, it was a really fine rope to walk, because you had the target who you were trying to build this kind of like cultural shift with, and those were like younger guys, and you wanted them to think it was funny, but the younger guys aren’t buying the product. Their moms are buying the product. So there could be a really huge like dichotomy of of target. It because funny could be so polarizing. I know it was a really hard road to toe for us, and I can imagine it’s really hard for other brands to also think about that. So I’m imagining that when you’re going to go for funny, you have to kind of zero in on that target and be just very clear about who the funny is going to appeal to, but I guess I’m one asking too is like, how do you mitigate the risk, if we know it’s going to be polarizing, how do we mitigate the risk? How do we think through what the risk is going to look like?

Emily McGregor 10:53
I mean, I feel like part of it is you have to accept that you are going to pull you are going to push some part of an audience away, like it is going to be targeted. It isn’t going to appeal for everyone. So if you are going to use humor, I think a brand has to accept that this isn’t going to appeal. I think pushing away is different than like offending someone as well. Like I think you definitely have to be careful on like offending I just saw some posts around blue sky did some meme that a lot of people are like, Oh, this was so ageist. They might not have anyone over 60 on their marketing team and, like, didn’t think about kind of those ramifications of using that humorous meme and alienating a certain part of the population and actually being offended. So I think that’s like, a different conversation necessarily. Like, okay, like, certain parts of the population are just not going to find this funny. I know for us, a lot of it is talking to the people who are buying and kind of and really figuring out what their pain points are like. What are they struggling with? What are they dealing with in terms of the problem that we’re solving with the brand and really making sure that we’re addressing the specificity of that and not talking in kind of broad terms. I think the success of the comedy comes from the specificity that you can get. And like the more granular and the more specific that you can get in that joke, the more it’ll relate, the more narrow down that audience is going to be, and that is the risk. But the more deeper if you’re targeted with it, the deeper that you can go, the funnier it’ll be, and the more that audience will be like, Oh, you really see my pain in a way that’s funny. Deeply understand it like so much more than just obviously, just saying that you get it, or putting some general statement out. So I don’t know, I think like specificity is kind of the key in that regard.

April Martini 12:48
So can you contextualize, maybe with an example or two? Because I know when you and I chatted, right? We talked some pretty specific examples. And I think like the one that comes to mind is you have that the lawyer client, right and trying to figure out what we were just talking about right, the context of, how do you know what’s going to hit, knowing you’re going to be polarizing and you’re not going to apply to everyone, maybe just walk us through because I think the other thing that’s really hard about this topic is people don’t know how to pick the right kind of funny right that example, or I really you know any examples that you think might help us hit on how you do that through your work.

Emily McGregor 13:24
Yeah. So for that, for that campaign, it was a coach for female lawyer, law firm owners and so most for that audience, sort of the cultural context was they were getting ads from other lawyer business coaches. It’s basically like hot bikini models in front of airplanes. Like, that’s like, essentially you’re like, a dude at a desk being like, you need to make more money. That’s basically the advertisement there she was getting. And she was like, that’s not relatable. These are mainly moms. They’re sandwich generation. They’re taking care of kids. They’re taking care of their aging parents. They’re dealing with, like, being called out as, like, Oh, are you the paralegal all the time? Like, there’s still so much sexism, just like baked into that career. They’re juggling so much. They’re up at 3am they’re freaking out. They’re thinking about a million things. They struggle with delegation. They struggle with imposter syndrome. So we talked through a long time about, like, what are these comments? And we also, we went through, you know, she would experiment with posting various memes and things on her Instagram, which is a good way, I think, of doing that kind of testing, like if you’re going to do a big commercial, like, do some smaller level testing of humor through kind of cheaper, Lower Lift kind of memes, and see what those comments are, and see what people were relating to. So we were able she was posting memes constantly, so we knew the ones that hit the most in terms of jokes and humor and tone. And then we were able to create ads that, you know, we did, one that was all about, like, waking up at 3am or am in the morning with, like, all the thoughts. And we got very specific with what those thoughts were that were coming out of the coming out of the actor’s head. And we’re having a conversation with two lawyers back and forth and rapid fire just. Exchanging basically pain points, but in like, a conversational, funny way, and the ads worked mainly because they just weren’t being served content like that, like, there just wasn’t ads that spoke to those very specific pain points.

Anne Candido 15:14
Yeah, I think it’s really interesting, because humor seems to be like you had said in the beginning, it’s not a fast track for marketing, but it seems like when done right, it can be but from what we’ve seen, the percentage of people who do it right versus do it wrong. Those, those scales are tipped a little bit. And I’m just kind of wondering if there’s, like, a shift in funny as well. Like, I use the example. So when I used to watch, like, stand up comedy, I mean, watching Eddie Murphy, and, you know, granted, you can’t say half the things he would say on stage now, but that was funny. I mean, it was just funny. I mean, and it was funny in a way that was clever, and it was funny in a way that it was expressive, it just came together in a performance. And now I kind of see stand up. And I’m not trying to pick on stand up. I’m a huge Joe Rogan fan, like his podcast, more than stand up, even though I saw both, but the funny. And now in comedy, it feels like it has to be shock value. It has to be dirty. It has to kind of really go there to where you’re kind of like, kind of haha, like awkward funny. So I’m just kind of wondering, what has the shape of comedy, or what people are viewing or consuming from like a comedy standpoint, how is that influencing how people are consuming or thinking about humor from a brand standpoint? And maybe they don’t relate at all. But since you’re a screenwriter, I figured you probably might have a good I see

Emily McGregor 16:41
it a little bit more on, like, what’s being shared on the internet. Like, I think, like, yeah, again, like, when, when doing that Old Spice ad, or, like, any, like, there’s so much, like, irreverency, I feel like in like, the 2010s and like, that’s what sort of online humor was at the time as well. Like, it was, like, really irreverent and random. And I don’t know that’s kind of like early millennial humor, I think, and that was probably the target, more the target audience at the time. But now I’m seeing with like, branded campaigns, things being a little more personality driven, and a little more of this, like, relatability driven, I feel. And I think, I think that’s because like, tick tocks now more of the like what’s being shared, and like most like, Tiktok jokes are what’s kind of popular in terms of being shared along around online. So doing things that are a little more like, Oh, haha, relatable, or like, Oh, isn’t this a zany character? Like, I feel like seeing things that are a little more spiritually aligned with that than like, let’s do something really random and crazy. I mean, I think there’s, we’ve seen a shift, you know, in Hollywood as well, even though they’re kind of moving away from dramedy as being popular all the all the mandates are, like, they don’t want dramedy anymore. So that’s kind of going out of style. It’ll come back. But right now it’s going out of style they want, like, right now in Hollywood, people are wanting and asking for just, like, straight, hard comedies that are just joke, joke, joke, joke, rather than the more like dramedy style that’s kind of going going by the wayside, at least in terms of, like, what, what we’re being asked to write and pitch.

April Martini 18:11
So what cautionary tales do you have for people kind of on the other side of things, right? You’ve worked with humor in lots of different ways, as we’ve discussed throughout. But where does it maybe miss the mark or not go right? Or, you know what, when you’re listening for people that are like, we really want to do humor, what are the things that go off in your head as warning bells of, like, maybe not the right approach for them?

Emily McGregor 18:32
I mean, one of the main pitfalls is being flippant about somebody’s struggle or pain. Like, I think humor can sometimes if we’re using it trying to relate, like, one of the big pitfalls is like, Oh, you’re just dismissing it because you’re making a joke about it, and that, obviously nobody wants to feel like you don’t care. Personally, in a lot of our work, I’m pushing people to use more humor, rather than telling them that they can’t. Because we get a lot of clients who are like, like, they’re funny. Like, I interviewed them and like, I think most people have a sense of humor. If you dig deep enough, somebody is like, funny. Eventually, a lot of the work that we do actually is like, pulling that, that natural humor out of people and letting them know, like, oh, that can be funny. It’s okay to show that side of myself. It’s okay to be vulnerable like that, rather than the opposite. Sarcasm is a huge pitfall like that. Just you gotta be careful with that. You gotta be careful with like dry humor, like those tones can be like a little stickier and harder to capture and harder to get across. Um, people misinterpret them more.

Anne Candido 19:38
I could attest to that, just from my own personal brand standpoint,

April Martini 19:44
thing and learning all the time, right? And like,

Anne Candido 19:46
that was sarcastic. That was supposed to be funny. Yes, I understand. Yeah,

Emily McGregor 19:55
I know those are, like, the hardest ones to get. Yeah, when a client’s like, I’m so, like, Oh, you’re funny, but you’re. I funny, like, oh, it’s gonna be hard.

Anne Candido 20:04
Well, I think that mean, that’s, it’s an interesting dilemma again, because it kind of circles back to the trying to, like, walk that tightrope of funny. But I will, I will say that it is an interesting introspection about what kind of funny you can be. And I again, I go back to something I said in the intro, where I feel like it is what people feel like is going to drive that familiarity, that relatability, but it isn’t always for everybody, or they can’t get it quite right, or they don’t want to alienate too big of a population. I worked on tide as an example. I mean, when 1 billion people are buying your brand, it’s really hard to be funny in a way that is generally funny, because alienating even a population feels very, very risky for a big brand like that. So I would love like any thoughts on, you know, I know your your your expertise is funny, but I would love any thoughts on when people can’t quite dial in the funny. How are other ways people can drive the familiarity or the relatability that maybe isn’t as like, deep, really rooted in in the humor. I think

Emily McGregor 21:10
you see big brands push this direction of like, more like, that conversational, friendly kind of tone taking, making the humor, less about like, Oh, we’re doing a joke, and we’re doing like, oh, it’s got a punch line, and creating more of, like, a brand tone that feels friendly and warm, or, you know, whatever tone that they want to elicit. And that less about being like, Oh, we’re doing this, like one joke with this, like, bear that’s running through a wall, and, you know that that’s the joke. And more of just like, oh, let’s create a brand that seems like fun. They seem playful. They don’t take themselves too seriously, and creating more of like, this personality attraction, rather than like, Let’s go all in on this one like joke. I think that’s like, one way to think about humor as well. Not so much like, oh, we have to make fun of this thing, or we have to make fun of ourselves. Really, like, go hard at that and rather just be, like, fun and approachable, not stiff and weird.

Anne Candido 22:12
Well, I think that’s really, really important, because so many people, if I was going to go back to your Tiktok statement, are trying to jump on that Tiktok bandwagon and trying to work their way in to a Zeitgeist that me, or may not be the right fit for him, like when you were talking about, like the type of funny that Tiktok can be, what popped in my head was what my daughter was showing me the other day was yesterday. It’s basically people drop stuff on their feet, and then the funny is in their reaction, right? And I’m like, this is like, going all the way back to, you know, jackass, like, so I’m like, it kind of resurrects itself. But I can’t even imagine, even though a lot of brands would like to play in that. I mean, I mean, it’s the creative in me back that would have been like, oh, let’s drop a tide bottle on your toe and see, like, what PL people react, but it’s not an authentic place to play, right? So going into TikTok for a second, because I’m sure that is a big channel for you. What are you seeing with regards to funny and TikTok, and how are brands really nailing that, knowing that that is a big like, core feeling or goal of tick tock is to generate the funny

Emily McGregor 23:25
I think the mistake is like, yeah, like, oh, let’s just jump on all these trends and, like, do our version of them. I think that’s maybe fine for like, social content. I think you have to approach, approach it sort of like self aware, so it doesn’t seem like you’re just trying. I’m thinking of the meme of what’s his name, like, Hey, fellow kids like, that’s what it like. Often feels like, I think, with brands coming in to, like, do a trendy Tiktok thing, it can just feel kind of, quote, unquote, cringy, like that. But if it’s like, done a little more tongue in cheek or a little more self aware, you can maybe walk that line

April Martini 24:01
when you go to approach Tiktok, what then is in your consideration, set of like, either what is going to work or not, or like, the types of things that you feel like are authentic, whether it’s for your one off clients or, you know, whatever you’re working on. How do you make choices there? Because I’m and I know I’m I’m also part of the older population. So Tiktok is not, maybe my platform in general. Um, but would love to just have some some thoughts there about how you use it for

Emily McGregor 24:31
us when we’re when we’re approaching something on TikTok. I mean, TikTok so, so hook-based everything marketing is, again, it’s like, I think it just like, distills it and makes it just like, so much more important to nail every part. Like Tiktok you have like, like, half a second to attract a viewer, and that hook is, like, the main important thing, and also the visual hook, and making sure the hook on the the text hook and the visual hook are tied together and that can create a. Narrative story already, that already draws the audience in. You know, you used to be able to do jokes that maybe had, like, a longer wind up, but that’s like a little harder to play on tick tock. You want some of that, like quick thing, and then you can back up, and then you need something else surprising, because they’ll leave if you don’t have something else surprising. And then you can back up, and then you need something else surprising, and then you need to be done. So the I think that, just like the joke format has has to shift a little bit for tick tock, unless you want to do something completely surprising and then started off super slow. I could potentially see that working. But again, like that format dictates a lot of like the joke format got

Anne Candido 25:38
it, I mean, and I think that is an art in a craft all in itself. So I highly suggest you, you hire somebody like Emily and team to help you really craft that in a way that is going to hit because it’s not as easy as it looks, and it definitely needs to be appreciated for the kind of content that is going to add value to that channel. So I just put out that little PSA for those who think they can just do a Tiktok in the office and think it’s funny, it’s going to hit.

April Martini 26:10
I was going to ask if you feel like there’s any untapped markets when it comes to humor, like anywhere or in your work again, anywhere where you’re like, Oh, we picked this type of humor specifically because none of it existed there before and we had the success. You know, anywhere that you feel like it’s underutilized, whether that’s a market type of client, whatever it might be,

Emily McGregor 26:34
yeah. I mean, one, one place that we saw a gap in humor and helped a brand stand out was more of a SaaS product. It was basically unlimited graphic design and one of those kind of offers. And there’s like a billion of them. There’s so many of them. But he really wanted to stand out, and so we sat down and went through his audience. I was like, Okay, it’s mostly like, Dude agency owners, like, what would they find funny? Kind of younger up until middle age, kind of age group. And brainstormed that, yeah, he got more success, but yeah, I think, yeah, tech can have, like, an interesting opportunity, I think, for humor that often gets overlooked, because it’s often, like, pretty straightforward, I think, in a lot of ways, and finding those like funny use cases would be a fun opportunity. I did find out recently, Australia has a cool opportunity. Apparently, their insurance companies do not do a lot of humor in their ads, unlike here, where it’s all humor based. So if you are in Australia, get some funny insurance ads. They need them

April Martini 27:41
all right. Well, we’ll jump into the rapid fire questions just to help our audience get to know you a little bit better. And these may not have anything to do, and they typically don’t with the conversation, so the first one I’ll ask is most recent vacation you went on, and why

Emily McGregor 27:56
I went to the Grand Canyon? Because even though I lived in Arizona my whole life I

April Martini 28:01
had never been Oh, awesome, yeah, all right, what is one thing that you have changed your mind about, Just in general,

Unknown Speaker 28:13
zucchini. I love it.

April Martini 28:21
All right? And what is one sort of mantra or principle you live by?

Emily McGregor 28:27
These are like, deep rapid fire. Usually people are like, what’s your favorite coffee? I love it. Kind of like, just go for it. It’ll either make a great experience or a great story.

April Martini 28:38
Love it. All right, we’ll let you kind of close it out. Let people know where they can find you. Remind them of your company if they want to continue the conversation all that good

Emily McGregor 28:47
stuff. Yeah, we’re penguin cat creative. You can find us@penguincatcreative.com and Penguin cat creative on Instagram. Those are the best ways. And we also have scrappy ads.io where you can see more of our video work.

April Martini 29:02
Awesome. All right. And with that, we encourage you to take at least one powerful insight you heard and put it into practice. Because remember, Strategic Counsel is only effective if you put it into action. Did we spark something with this episode that you want to talk about further reach out to us through our website: ForthRight-People.com We can help you customize what you have heard to move your business and make sure to Follow or Subscribe to Strategic Counsel on your favorite podcast platform!