Hunting for Easter Eggs

Sorry it’s been a while, writing is hard and work is busy and etc. etc. etc. whatever.

On to the show.

Trevor Noah is not the most beloved comedian on (or formerly on) TV. While I am not revisiting any episodes of his run on The Daily Show any time soon, let’s suspend our opinions on Noah’s talent for this morning’s newsletter.

_{Though to be fair I saw him do an hour of stand up in Madison in 2016 & he murdered}

When Comedy Central lost Daily Show Host Jon Stewart, the relatively-unknown Trevor Noah had big shoes to fill.

Stewart had become one of the rare few who had reached near-ubiquitous adoration in the political sphere (though he’ll tell you — and Bill O’Reilly for that matter — that he’s just a comedian).

The stakes for Noah to pan out were higher than imaginable for Comedy Central to continue their anchor program.

But rather than see Noah’s anonymity as a weakness, Comedy Central leveraged it as a strength.

Here’s the marketing strategy that propelled 38M impressions from 1 search campaign:

Right off the bat CC identified something crucial. People weren’t seeking out news about “Trevor Noah Daily Show” on Google. They didn’t know the guy… and they wanted gossip.

So they met their audience right where they already were, taking searches like “Trevor Noah girlfriend” and redirecting users to a YouTube video of Noah answering the question himself using crafty Google Ads.

When you searched “How old is Trevor Noah?” you were greeted with a video of Noah answering “I am 72 Years Old.”

Organic.

Memorable.

Authentic.

Unfortunately, all of these videos seem to have been removed from YouTube, including “Trevor Noah Autotune,” “Trevor Noah ASMR,” and “Trevor Noah Gay.” Though Bustle does have some screen grabs that give you the gist:

It resonated in a major way. These ‘micro-moments’ grew into a hunt for new Easter eggs, w/ viewers searching key terms seeking these unlisted videos.

And as word got out, the viral campaign picked up additional earned media from outlets like Slate & The A.V. Club.

Not only was this driving awareness, but viewers inadvertently got to know Noah's personality through the videos. It forced them to give him a chance.

Plus it offered a form of 'Digital Currency'. People love to be 1st & the 'Search Game' was the perfect opportunity to one-up friends. What’s better than beating your friends to the latest viral trend?

All in all, the campaign was an overwhelming success & a true case study in unconventional digital marketing.

👉 38M impressions

👉 2.8M views

👉 85%+ avg watch time of each video

👉 80 days of watch-time total

By the time Noah's 1st episode premiered in 2015, the episode reached 7.5M people across platforms.

3.7M watched on Comedy Central (more than Stewart's final show).

And The Daily Show saw a 41% boost in the 18-34 demo while lowering the median age of its audience by 6 years.