Work your content like a comic

Comedians set the standard for content optimization ages ago. Advertising's answer was "copy testing," and it sucked. I've moved on.

In the first decades of my advertising career, I pre-tested a ton of creative work, and I look back on that and cringe.

Focus group testing of creative? A wholly artificial, forced process with group/social dynamics skewing responses…

…with final “results” dependent on moderators’ in-room and post-research analytical and presentation skills, filtered through the prejudices of the agency and client teams.

Other than all that, it’s bulletproof!

Focus groups and other qualitative techniques are extremely valuable when deployed for early insight development, way upstream of final creative output. But it’s kind of a joke for “testing” creative work.

OK, what about quantitative copy testing?

For me, a little better—no group dynamics at play, and some statistical significance. But still a forced, usually uncluttered, artificial ad exposure, asking panel participants to analyze their own responses to creative work as opposed to measuring actual results “in the real world.”

Bottom line, you’re spending real money to get unreal answers.

However you “pre-test” creative, it is money spent and gone.

There IS a better way.

Copy testing is dead. Long live the new copy testing: digital advertising.

I love where we are today thanks to digital best practices.

At my consumer healthcare client we work with our agency Bridge & Vali to create and distribute hundreds of versions and permutations of ad copy and content every month, only through safe, well-targeted digital channels and publishers.

We quickly learn which versions of our content deliver the best results, then double down on the best messaging and go back to work on topping the performance of our best performers. We can even adapt our top content into TV spots. (Yes, smart TV advertising, distributed well, still works.)

The biggest benefit of all: we are selling stuff while learning

This was the big ”ah hah” for me over 15 years ago at the start of my digital marketing efforts.

Every dollar spent on digital advertising is also in-market, real-world research, since we’re learning while we’re selling.

Or you could say, every dollar we spend on targeted in-market message testing makes us money while we learn what works best.

So what’s this have to do with comics? It’s what they do: evolve and optimize their content while selling tickets

They call it “workshopping” or “road-working” their routines.

I call it “selling while learning, learning while selling,” and I never picked up on the lesson. (Direct marketers were the marketing pioneers here, by the way—ad agencies looked down their nose at them, me included…we were creative snobs.)

But to cut ourselves a little slack, we didn’t have the technology or digital channels to pull this off at scale until the internet made it possible.

Nikki Glaser’s Golden Globes hosting prep

In a TV interview before she hosted the 2025 Golden Globes in January, Glaser said,

“I know this sounds crazy, but I know I’m going to nail it…because I have set up a system leading up to it and couldn’t possibly have worked harder on it.”

She developed her monologue for months on the road all over the country—not just polishing her jokes but ensuring their appeal across the Globe’s diverse national audience.

On the red carpet before she went on that night, she told People Magazine,

“When I recite my opening spiel on air, it will be my 94th time telling some version of this.

Nail it she did.

Two months later she was signed to host again next year—an unusually early hire, and a coup for the first-ever solo female host.

What used to take “the marketing machine” a year we now pull off in weeks

Not long ago, advertising was an analog, linear process of market research, ad-making, copy-testing, fine tuning, media buying and distribution, post-analysis…and then what one of my clients used to call the “creeping incrementalism” of small improvements.

Only 10 years ago at Unilever the ad development and optimization cycle could take 2-3 years, with the market often shifting dramatically before we rolled out an ad. That now feels like a Flintstones episode.

Gervais, Rock, Carlin: Do the work, check out America, listen to your audience

The legends sing the praises of doing the hard work, facing audiences and improving in real time—no short cuts:

“An hour’s stage time is worth fifty hours writing. It’s just doing it and doing it. You’ve got to have a passion for it and find your voice.” —Ricky Gervais

“The thing that makes me most happy is doing stand up. Being on the road, on tour, checking out America.”—Chris Rock

George Carlin lays this out in a 1996 Charlie Rose interview, starting at 12:45:

“I write something out, revise it about 20 times before I ever put it onstage. [Stand up] is the ONLY art form where the intended receiver is present at the delivery, and the art form can be altered according to their appreciation of it as we go.

“They give me signals to let me do more with my body or face. The comedian gets to do this [in response to] how they appreciate him.”

The best digital marketing practices today call for the same thing: constant, repeated exposure in market, not through research…ongoing feedback (whether comments, reviews, or most importantly, sales)…and relentless, ongoing polishing, dropping, adding and optimizing content until it kills consistently.

Then we go back and do it all again.

And I DO have a passion for it, and STILL find it fun and rewarding.

Carlin’s mother worked in ad agencies her entire career.

His father was a star ad salesman.

Good training!

Notes & Sources

https://nypost.com/2024/08/01/ticket-sales/nate-bargatze-tour-2024-where-to-buy-tickets-best-prices-atlantic-city/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

https://people.com/golden-globes-2025-nikki-glaser-practiced-monologue-93-times-8769425?utm_source=chatgpt.com

Carlin’s Charlie Rose interview here

Another great Carlin interview on his craft with Jon Stewart below: