Hi Marketing Bestie,

Just landed back from Austin this morning after an offsite with the team.

Honestly it reminded me what I've been MISSING with remote work. Those random hallway conversations. The impromptu brainstorms when you're grabbing coffee. The "oh wait, can I ask you something" moments that turn into the BEST ideas.

You can't Slack your way into those.

But on the other hand, I love the flexibility, family time and no commuting of being remote.

How do YOU feel about remote vs hybrid vs in-office.

Hit reply and let me know.

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SPARKNOTES FROM THE POD

5 WAYS TO WIN SOCIAL MEDIA WITH JORI EVANS FROM MANSCAPED

Jori Evans has worked at Slim Jim, Taco Bell, Amazon Music, and now Manscaped. She's behind some of the most viral meme marketing campaigns on the internet.

At Slim Jim, she was running Instagram meme marketing at its peak. At Manscaped, she created their most viral content ever...100 million organic views in under 4 months.

Zero paid spend. Just organic.

One of her secrets: a program called the Makers Network. She finds film students at USC. Gives them a budget. A short brief. And creative freedom. Then she gets out of the way. The result: Content that actually spreads. Not influencer posts that look like ads. Not agency work that got watered down by 15 people in a room.

Real content that people share in their DMs. Here's how she does it.

1️⃣. Stop Chasing Follower Counts. Find Hungry Creators With Strong POV.

Jori's Take: "We're not looking for these makers as influencers. We're not looking for their channel following. We're not looking for how many followers they have. We are looking for really strong creative points of view, and especially with younger creators that wanna get their foot in the door and that are really hungry for it."

Everyone knows what traditional influencer marketing looks like now. The polished post. The #ad. The product placement that feels...forced.

Jori built something different at Manscaped called the Makers Network. Here's how it works: She finds film students. Not big influencers. Students at USC, NYU, film schools. Kids who are hungry. Who want portfolio pieces. Who have strong creative POV but zero followers.

She slides into their DMs. Gives them a brief. Pays them. Then adds a bonus if the content performs. Example: She found two USC students, Zach and Ryan, for the Face Picks campaign. The brief was simple: "How do we get men to send face pics more often and less dick pics?" That was it.

No red tape. No network TV clearance needed. No 15-person approval process. Just: Here's the insight. Here's the budget. What would YOU do with this?

Zach and Ryan shot it in a day and a half. The video hit 100 million organic views in under 4 months. It got written about in GQ Denmark. Save the Children commented on it. It kept going viral in different pockets of the internet for months.

And Zach and Ryan...they are 22. Now they're highly sought-after filmmakers. Because they have Manscaped in their portfolio. Jori's building a feeder program with film schools now. Course credit + compensation. Students get portfolio pieces. Manscaped gets authentic content that doesn't look like an ad.

Takeaway: Stop only chasing follower counts. Find hungry creators with strong POV. Film students. Up-and-comers. People who want to prove themselves. Pay them. Give them creative freedom. Then get out of their way. Your content will look different because it's made by people who WANT to make great work, not people who are just fulfilling a brand deal.

2️⃣. Keep 5 People In The Room. Not 15.

Jori's Take: "Unlike working with an agency, you're going through, what does casting look like? What does the clothes look like? What does the set look like? And you have 15 to 20 different people in a room making all these decisions... We kept this to about five people in the room to make these decisions. And for the most part, most of the decision making was left up to Zach and Ryan."

Here's what kills good creative: Too many people in the room. When you work with an agency, you get 15-20 people making decisions. Casting. Wardrobe. Set design. Messaging. Legal. Brand safety.

Everyone has an opinion. Everyone needs give approval. The creative gets watered down. Diluted. Safe. Boring.

Jori's Face Picks campaign had 5 OR LESS people making decisions. That's it.

And most of the decisions were left to the creators. Not the brand. Not the agency. The CREATORS.

Result: Content that felt authentic. Not branded. Not like an ad. Just...good. Her CMO saw it and said "this needs to go further than organic social." They put it on Netflix during WWE Raw. It exploded on X organically. Then kept spreading.

The lesson: Less cooks in the kitchen = better food. When you have 15 people weighing in, you get committee creative. Safe. Forgettable. When you have 5 people and trust the creators, you get something that actually works.

Jori's now building this into Manscaped's Super Bowl campaign. She sat through 20 hours of pitches from agencies. But she made sure the creators from the Makers Network were ALSO pitching. Because they earned it. And because they think differently than agencies do.

Takeaway: Audit your approval process. How many people sign off on your creative? If it's more than 5, you're killing your content before it launches. Cut the committee. Trust fewer people. Give creators more control. Your content will get better immediately.

3️⃣. Memes Are The Love Language Of Your Audience.

Jori's Take: "Memes is like the love language of bros and like the people who are following our brand... I have a lot of different guy friends who talk about, we haven't talked about anything of substance, but we've been sending memes back and forth for like three months now, and that's just how we interact... We're looking more for shares than we are for comments or engagements or reach at this point."

Check your DMs with friends right now. 80% of it is memes. That's how people communicate. Especially Manscaped's audience-bros. Guys who don't talk about feelings. They send memes instead.

Jori realized: If memes are how her audience talks to each other, Manscaped needs to BE the meme they share. Not just post memes. But create content so shareable it becomes part of the conversation.

Her team doesn't optimize for likes or comments anymore. They optimize for SHARES. Because shares mean you're in the DMs. You're part of how people talk to each other. You're not just content they scroll past. You're content they USE to communicate.

This changes everything. It means you stop chasing engagement metrics. Stop caring about comments. Start caring about: Are people sharing this? Are they using it to talk to their friends?

For Manscaped's Super Bowl campaign, they're creating content around "what it's like to build a Super Bowl commercial when you can't say b***s." Low-fi content. Office-style. Fake legal memos. Memeable stuff people want to share.

But here's the key: You can't create memes for every brand. Jori says it only works if your audience already talks in memes. If they're not sending memes in their DMs, don't force it. You need to know what corners of the internet your audience lives in. And you need help from creators who live there too.

Manscaped works with meme creators who dominate different corners of the internet. Dating culture memes. Female meme culture. Deep dark meme corners. Each creator knows when a meme is starting to bubble up in their space. They jump on it fast. Before it hits Instagram a week later.

Takeaway: Track shares, not just likes. If people aren't sharing your content in DMs, it's not resonating. Work with meme creators who live in different corners of the internet than you do. They'll spot trends you miss. But only do memes if your audience actually talks in memes. Otherwise, find their actual love language.

4️⃣. Walk The Line. Be Uncomfortable Enough To Stand Out.

Jori's Take: "If there's anything I really have learned a lot specifically with this brand is that you can't shy away from it being uncomfortable because it is what it is. Men need to trim their b***s. We've gotta talk about it. How are you gonna talk about it?"

Manscaped sells razors for Men's b***s. That's uncomfortable. IT'S UNCOMFORTABLE FOR ME TO WRITE THAT. But you can't sell b*** trimmers without talking about b***s. So they lean into it. Face Pics vs D**k Pics. Gray Sweatpants. Taboo topics that their audience actually cares about.

For their Super Bowl campaign, Jori hit a problem: You can't say "b***s" on network TV. NBC won't clear it. So they had to walk a different line. Keep the Manscaped humor. But make it network-friendly.

The process was uncomfortable. They briefed 20+ agencies. Told them upfront: This has to clear for network TV. No b***s. No explicit stuff. But it still needs to FEEL like Manscaped. It still needs to be funny in the way Manscaped is funny.

For weeks, the team felt weird. Because Manscaped without b***s content felt...off. But they realized: The brand isn't about b***s. It's about HUMOR. That's the throughline. That's what stays consistent. So they kept asking: Is this funny in the Manscaped way? If yes, it works.

Meanwhile, for organic social, they're going ALL in on the "we can't say b***s" angle. Making content about how ridiculous it is that you can't say b***s on TV. Turning the constraint into content. Low-fi Office-style videos. Fake legal memos. Setting expectations: This won't be a b***s commercial, but it WILL be Manscaped humor.

The lesson: You have to be willing to make some people uncomfortable. If you're trying to please everyone, you're pleasing no one. Jori says you need to "turn off people who are gonna hate you" to connect deeply with the people who GET you.

Taboo topics work because nobody else is talking about them. Face Pics got into culture because it was uncomfortable but TRUE. Bros send d**k pics. Partners hate it. Manscaped gave them language to talk about it.

Takeaway: Find the uncomfortable truth your audience needs to hear. Then say it. Don't water it down. Don't make it safe. Lean into what makes your brand unique, even if it turns some people off. The people who hate it weren't your customers anyway. The people who love it will become evangelists.

5️⃣. Organic is about Being In The Conversation.

Jori's Take: "The point of organic social isn't to sell, it's for earned media. It's for brand recognition. It's for community building for the most part... We're hyper aware of the fact that it's organic conversation that's gonna feed into these AI tools when it comes to talking about our brand and what are they gonna say when they talk about our brand."

You can't measure organic social the same way you measure paid ads. Jori stopped tracking impressions and engagement the way she used to. Instagram changed how they count impressions. The platforms keep shifting the metrics.

So she tracks something else: CONVERSATION. Are people talking about Manscaped on Reddit? Are they sharing Face Pics content months after it launched? Are they using Manscaped memes to communicate with their friends?

That matters more than likes. Because organic conversation feeds AI. When someone asks ChatGPT or Claude "what's a good razor for men," the AI scans the internet for mentions. Reddit threads. X conversations. Organic social content.

If Manscaped is all over those conversations, they show up in AI results. If they're not, they disappear. Paid ads don't help with that. Only organic conversation does.

Jori's focusing on: Breaking into the meme ecosystem. Staying there long-term. Getting shared in DMs. Getting talked about on Reddit. Getting mentioned organically across the internet.

Face Pics worked because it created organic conversation. It wasn't just views. It was TALK. People discussed it. Shared it. Wrote about it. That conversation is still happening months later.

For Super Bowl, the goal isn't just the 30-second spot. It's the organic conversation around it. The memes people make. The Reddit threads. The DM shares. That's what lasts. That's what feeds AI. That's what builds brand recognition.

Takeaway: Stop measuring organic social like paid ads. Track conversation instead. Are people talking about your brand on Reddit? Sharing your content in DMs? Using your brand as a reference point? Those are the signals that matter. They're harder to track, but they're what actually builds brand equity. And in the AI era, organic conversation is how you show up in search results.

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IN A MEME