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What marketers can learn from The Onion: Interview with

founding editor Scott Dikkers
Daniel Burstein September 28th, 2016
Change. Is. Scary.
There was a time, not very long ago, when marketers were the only ones that had the resources to get the
message out about products. And they did it through print, TV, and radio ads.
And because of this one-sided power, advertisers would pretty much just say whatever ridiculous bunk they
could come up with to sell their product. Like this ad from 1931, in which a doctor shills for cigarettes.
According to the Stanford School of Medicine, The doctors depicted were never specific individuals,
because physicians who engaged in advertising would risk losing their license. It was contrary to accepted
medical ethics at the time for doctors to advertise, but that did not deter tobacco companies from hiring
handsome talent, dressing them up to look like throat specialists, and printing their photographs alongside
health claims or spurious doctor survey results. These images always presented an idealized physician wise,
noble, and caring.
Not surprisingly, customers became skeptical over time. And marketers jobs got harder. But that was nothing
compared to what was about to happen.

The digital revolution

In the year 2000, 50% of adult Americans were using the Internet, according to Pew Research Center. By
2013, that number hit 86%.
With the advent of the web, more and more customers were given an outlet to express their opinions about
products and services. This exploded further with social media. No longer did marketers and brands have the
market cornered on communication about products and services.
This was a massive change that made marketers jobs exponentially harder. Sure, there was the splintering of
media. But the real challenge lied in the change in brand voices. The Internet created the most skeptical
generation yet. If marketers could no longer get away with ridiculous boasts, what should their voice be to
customers? How could they convince and connect with customers in the age of the Internet?
Americas Finest News Source
While hands were wringing on Madison Avenue, one of the brands that figured out how to navigate this new
digital world was making the transition from print to web in Madison, Wisconsin. The Onion emerged as one
of the brands that got it in the early days of the Internet, whatever that elusive it was.
Since then, the satirical newspaper has grown into a brand that attracts 7.5 million unique visits per month
and is worth as much as $500 million (based on the less than $200 million Univision Communications paid
for a 40% stake earlier this year).
To get some ideas on how marketers can develop authentic messaging and build relationships with skeptical
digital consumers, I talked to Scott Dikkers, the founding editor and longest-serving editor-in-chief of The
Onion. Scott is a featured speaker at MarketingSherpa Summit 2017 in Las Vegas, and will judge the
MarketingSherpa funny marketing headline contest were running right now. (Just tweet a funny marketing
headline using #Sherpa17 by Friday, September 30, 2016, and the creators of the two best headlines will each

win a ticket to Summit. You can learn more in the blog post Millennials something Snapchat something
something.)
Everything we talked about wouldnt be a fit for the typical brand marketer. After all, at the end of the day,
Scott and his team were writing jokes, not marketing copy. However, by seeing an example of ridiculously
engaging content, and learning how it is created, marketers can get an outside-the-industry perspective on
what resonates with people and how they can safely replicate some of these ideas within the confines of brand
standards.
Here are some lessons for marketers from our conversation:
If you want customers to engage, do more than sell
Of course the main goal of marketers is to ultimately sell a product. However, for many types of purchases,
having customers engage with your brand first is important. Over time they learn about your company, and
ultimately you have served, informed, and won the trust of customers enough for them to make a purchase.
It is always troubling when the core message of the marketing is buy this product, Scott said.
To build trust over time, you must find the right voice for your brand. And that voice cant simply be to sell,
sell, sell. For The Onion, that voice was simple be funny.
We would belittle our own company because we knew that would be funny. The only rule for us was its
got to be funny, he said.
Find out who your ideal customer is, and serve them as hard as you can
If your brand tries to be everything to everyone, it will end up being about nothing. Even with segmentations
ability to craft different messages to different customers, you necessarily have to identify some people as not
being the ideal customer for your product.
Scotts version of this idea is, I feel like theres a certain segment thats going to love what Im doing and I
just cant spend time worrying about pissing off people who arent in that group.
For your brand, you likely wont take as extreme of an edge with your messaging. But you do have to focus
sharply on your ideal customer(s) and not worry if your messages dont appeal to people your product cant
serve.
Real-time marketing is about preparation
Two weeks after the events of September 11, The Onion addressed the news head-on with stories like
American Life Turns into Bad Jerry Bruckheimer Movie. This is an issue that The Poynter Institute now
calls legendary and Yahoo! News says is now classic.
I personally remember this issue of The Onion very clearly. The nation was so sensitive following those
attacks. And when the issue came out, it was almost like an official confirmation that it was okay to laugh
again.
But it was a very daring issue to publish. While Scott was taking a hiatus as editor-in-chief at that time and
his assistant editor, Rob Segal, was editor, he was in touch with them and had some unique insights to share.
This was really an impactful lesson for marketers, so Im including an extended quote from Scott:

I think one of the reasons that issue was so great was that by that time, The Onion writing staff
culture had learned so much about when its appropriate to make certain types of jokes about
certain types of things because of all the work we had done on Our Dumb Century because it
was a two-year long process working on that book and the book came out in 1999. We made
jokes about the Titanic and we figured nothing felt inappropriate about that because it was 100
years ago and nobody from that was still alive. You could make any joke you wanted.
But as we got closer to the present day, we were making jokes about the Federal Building
bombing in Oklahoma City and stuff like that and then it started to feel like, Thats interesting.
Why is it different when you make a joke about this as opposed to the Titanic? And we decided
were not going to have there be any difference because theyre all contained in the same book
and they should all have the same context. We really learned that rule that you may have heard,
comedy equals tragedy plus time.
We learned that the real rule is comedy equals tragedy period. The best jokes come from tragedy
and humor is a great coping mechanism when theres tragedy in the world. People need to laugh.
Everybody is going to be able to laugh after a certain period after a tragedy, but even right away
it can serve as a great release valve and a first step toward healing. Its a really powerful thing.
They used that 9/11 issue to do just that.
There was so much fan mail about people who were grateful for The Onion coming in and
basically telling people its okay to laugh. Thats what makes us human. Youre not laughing at
the victims. Youre not laughing at the tragedy, but theres a lot to laugh at here in this world.
There has been a lot of press about the success of brands like Oreo, and how its parent company Nabisco
reacted quickly and cleverly when the power went out at the Super Bowl and reaped the social network and
media rewards for doing so.
But there has been even more press about brands stumbling into using real-time events unartfully and
alienating more customers than they attract.
The Onions team of writers were successful with their post-9/11 issue because they were prepared. How
prepared is your team the next time a real-time marketing opportunity arises?
The best ideas come from a lot of ideas
All successful marketing campaigns are built off of an insightful initial concept. The Onion isnt so different.
They need a solid concept with a clear, concise headline to pay it off.
Asked about the creative process and how they get to those successful concepts, Scott explained, Quality is
all about quantity. So The Onion is well known for producing and reviewing hundreds of jokes, maybe a
thousand or more jokes every week even though only a dozen or two will actually be used. So I believe that
the best material can only be found when you generate just an exhaustive amount of material and can sift
through that for the gems.
Learn more from Scott at MarketingSherpa Summit 2017
As I mentioned, Scott will be a featured speaker at MarketingSherpa Summit in Las Vegas. When I asked him
if there was anything else he wanted marketers to know, he did a little marketing for his own session:
I guess my talk at the conference is the morning after the big party. So I would just urge people if they want
to hear more, just take it easy on the booze and get up early and come and listen to me because Ill have a lot

of funny stories about some of the particular lessons learned on the journey of building up The Onion over
the years.
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Video + Humor + Viral = Lead-Gen Success for Data Backup Firm

About Daniel Burstein

Daniel Burstein, Director of Editorial Content, MECLABS Daniel oversees all editorial content coming from
the MarketingExperiments and MarketingSherpa brands while helping to shape the editorial direction for
MECLABS working with our team of reporters to dig for actionable information while serving as an
advocate for the audience. Daniel is also a frequent speaker and moderator at live events and on webinars.
Previously, he was the main writer powering MarketingExperiments publishing engine. Prior to joining the
team, Daniel was Vice President of MindPulse Communications, specializing in IT clients such as IBM,
VMware and BEA Systems. Daniel has more than 15 years of experience in copywriting, editing, internal
communications, sales enablement, and field marketing communications.
Twitter | LinkedIn | Daniel's Posts | Send a Letter to the Editor
Categories: Marketing Tags: marketingsherpa summit 2017, satire, social media, The Onion, Twitter

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