🛹Skateboarder shows how content is done

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Glad it’s Friday. No beer all week and it has been a wonderf… ok, I’ve been a trainwreck. 

But don’t let that stop you from healthy living. I feel fresh and froggy, actually. So much so, that I’m going back on my word with today’s Feature Story.

It is all about making your content relatable. After I eat crow, we’ll dive face-first into the Week’s Marketing Wrap-Up.

How to Create Relatable Content

Dropped by my dad’s house last week. I was shocked. 

The old guy watches some weird stuff on TV.

• Neighbor Wars (or something)

• Road Rage shows

• Prison Lock-up series

But I never thought I’d see the day he’d be watching a former professional skateboarder host a modern version of America’s Funniest Home Videos alongside a panel of untalented commentators.

Ridiculousness.

The last time I saw that show was when my daughters were teenagers. 

I had forgotten about it and assumed it ran its course for three years and got canceled.

Little did I know…

Current Numbers

The show is currently MTV's fourth most popular program, pulling in about 88,000 viewers per episode. Might seem low, but it's performing 10.6 times better than the average TV show in the United States.

Ridiculousness’s Relatable Content Takeover

It has become such a big part of MTV that in 2020, they played it for 113 hours out of 168 total hours in one week - that's about 67% of all MTV's airtime.

The show has been great for advertising:

• Big brands like Subway (82.8 million views), Hershey's (76.9 million), and McDonald's (75.2 million) love running ads during the show

• People stick around during commercials - the show has a 94.42 attention score

Simple and Relatable Content 

Ridiculousness has also become super-efficient at making episodes. They once took 12 hours to film one episode. Now? They create six episodes in a day. This helps explain how they've managed to create so many episodes since 2011.

Global Appeal

The show isn't just a hit in America - it's done well in:

• Romania

• Netherlands

• United Kingdom

• Germany

Many countries have even made their own versions of the show. This proves the relatable format works worldwide.

Relatable Content Proved Me Wrong

Those numbers above are insane. I was way wrong about Ridiculousness. 

Still, I’m amazed at how successful the show has been despite Rob Dyrdek being insanely talented and smart (his systems are famous - see link in P.S. at end of email).

I shouldn’t be surprised, though because:

• My 68-year-old dad watches the show daily

• My daughters loved it as high schoolers and still watch

• My nephew watched it as a middle-schooler

It’s relatable, easy-to-get comedy. You’d laugh even with the TV sound turned off. The show works across all demographic lines.

The same principle worked for Seinfeld and Larry David using Kramer to look goofy, fall down, and be plain weird. Anyone with any IQ level gets that Kramer’s funny.

It’s also the same principle another old-school stand-up comic promoted…

“You’ll never go broke underestimating the public’s intelligence.”

Ridiculousness isn’t high-brow content. It’s better. Because it’s relatable. 

Don’t forget that this principle applies to ads too - not just content.

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Thanks for reading Inbox Hacking. Please share it with a friend or co-worker — it’ll prolly make their existence 4 times better. It’ll definitely help them with marketing.

Shane McLendon - Copy Kingpin

Bonus: Rob Dyrdek’s systems for a better life, easier business, and a happy wife (podcast).