🥴What's cringe-marketing & why’s it crushing it currently?

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Greetings, Inbox Hackers. I’m fired up today because of a hot topic. 

Cringe Marketing. It hit my radar last week. And wiggled its way into today’s Main Thing. We’ll see why it’s hot (one brand used it to grow by 40% YoY). Then I’ll toss in a few examples (one is a local Macho Man).

Appetizer: The killer offer I never heard of that got David Ogilvy rolling in the advertising world (YouTube Short). 

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The Main Thing

Cringe Marketing

I just ran across the term “cringe marketing” last week. It’s a positive term (not negative).

Up until now, I’d thought of cringe marketing as stuff like the ads I see on Paramount+ TV. They try to be funny but flop because they’re clearly created by a committee that overruled the one funny person in the room.

Stuff like that was cringe to me. Now, though, cringe is being defined differently. Maybe it’s just a new term for “guerrilla marketing,” which fits the cleaning brand that posts videos of its CEO cleaning public restrooms (its sales are up 40% YoY).

There’s one brand everyone brings up - I’ll get to it in a sec.

First, though, a local celebrity pulls this off.

Macho Man & Brewmaster

A small brewery in my hometown is run by a guy named Drake. 

Dude’s a real quiet guy in normal conversations. But his alter ego is basically Macho Man Randy Savage. 

Drake’s a huge pro wrestling fan. Loved Randy Savage. So, he used the natural “loudness” of pro wrestlers to promote his brewery.

• Does it at live events

• On social media

• Occasionally for fun at the brewery during regular business hours

Is dressing up in wrestling tights, a pink cowboy hat, and a fur coat cringe? 

Yes. Unless you OWN it! Drake the beer man owns it.

Again, it can’t be easy, because he’s naturally soft-spoken. But to get attention for his business, he’s willing to risk being cringe or silly or open to criticism.

By the way, he studied marketing at UGA.

However, he learned more about marketing from watching pro wrestling. 

It’s all about being outrageous and telling a great story (that anyone can understand).

He’s such a good marketer that the side of his building facing the main highway has one word in 5-foot letters. “BEER.”

Not the name of his brewery. Not his family name. Not business hours. BEER. 

He keeps the main thing the main thing. 

Problem is, you can’t put a one-word sign on Instagram or Facebook. It would get ignored. 

A man talking like Randy Savage on top of the bar won’t be ignored. It stops the scroll. 

It’s outlandish. Weird. Fun. And many would say cringe. 

Back to the brand that gets mentioned most with cringe marketing. 

Duolingo 

This brand’s marketing resonates because it does fun stuff. Duolingo isn’t afraid to be cringy.

Their CMO who just left the company — she’s brilliant and young. Being young helps her connect with young customers on the web. 

She’s helped make the little owl mascot the most recognizable mascot on the web. 

Then they killed the owl!

Brought it back to life. But how many brands woulda risked that move?

Duolingo gets big credit for taking chances.

Yet, even this company isn’t reckless. The CMO, in an interview said, she was only able to get one ad campaign approved for the newly formed in-house video production team. Despite her prior successes.

So, the bigger the brand, the more limits on what they're willing to risk. As successful as Duolingo’s been, they still held back their brilliant CMO a little. 

Another example is…

Liquid Death 

The most cringe ad I’ve seen from the canned water phenom is testing the claim their water tastes better than licking a sweaty man’s back. 

That’s out there! But the brand doesn’t care. 

And the creatives got the idea from a regular person, not a marketer. Some hater had commented on a social media post about sweaty backs tasting better than Liquid Death. 

Like an impromptu Pepsi challenge but real nasty. At least this challenge had zero corn syrup.

One more example, and it reveals the disclaimer in all this cringe marketing talk…

Scrub Daddy

A quick look at their TikTok shows they don’t care about their marketing being perfectly polished. 

They use the phrase “we’re f-ing working on it.” In response to customers begging for a bottle cleaner.

Scrub Daddy creatives also knock over their product in the video as if it has no value!

How many branding gurus would advise that? Few.

Here’s where the biggest point must be made…

Scrub Daddy is a GREAT product. Even I admit it, and I hate buying stuff. 

The little scrubber is awesome. And holds up to abuse over the long haul.

Same goes for Drake’s beer. It’s awesome. I’ve visited 60+ breweries the past 10 years and I know good beer. 

Drake is great at what he does. 

That’s the point. Without a quality product or service, it does no good to grab attention with cringe marketing.

Or any kind of marketing. 

It’s actually a terrible thing to get attention for a pitiful product!

So, if you’re willing to roll the dice on being off-brand or having a joke fall flat, go for it.

That’s the risk. Because you cannot predict how the audience will receive it. 

No risk, no reward. But with cringe marketing, the pay-off can be huge. 

Just be sure what you’re offering is worthy of the attention you grab.

Onward now to Monday Marketing News.

Please share Inbox Hacking with a fellow marketing go-getter or business owner. I appreciate you reading & sharing.

Shane McLendon - Copy Kingpin

"The best way to sell something: don't sell anything. Earn the awareness, respect, and trust of those who might buy." ~Rand Fishkin