[Short #142] Pudgy Penguin's GIF Strategy
PLUS: 🩳 Why today's piece is actually short
Last week I came across a tweet from a Pudgy Penguin team member that piqued my interest.
HALF A BILLION VIEWS?
Time for some TPan investigation. Fortunately Berko_Crypto (Pudgy Penguins Community Lead) made it easy because they linked back to a thread from early October outlining the Pudgy Penguin GIF strategy.
TLDR:
The Pudgy Penguin community uses memes as a dominant form of communication. Memes have risen in prominence over the years thanks to the rise of social media platforms.
To make the Pudgy Penguin memes more accessible, the team uploaded 50 GIF stickers onto GIPHY, a GIF platform that is integrated with Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Telegram, Whatsapp, etc.
Community feedback was positive, so the team continued to create and upload more GIFs and community members could submit their ideas.
Berko’s tweet on November 9th shared that Pudgy Penguin GIFs crossed 500 million views. What’s that number at today (November 16th?), 7 days later?
🤯
What is a GIF view defined as?
So this doesn’t mean Pudgy Penguin GIFs have been used half a billion times, but it is an effective marketing tool considering evergreen impact and relative low-lift effort.
I tested this out on various platforms myself.
‘Penguin’ on Twitter: I imagine penguin is a hard term to rank for, and Pudgy Penguins has one GIF above the fold. This is impressive considering all the other GIFs that have been around for significantly longer.
‘Penguin’ on Instagram: Pudgy Penguins didn’t show up above the fold, but half a scroll down, we can see several Pudgy Penguin GIFs show up.
‘Fun Penguin’ on Twitter: A couple Pudgy Penguins show up above the fold.
‘Funny Penguin’ on Instagram: Pudgy Penguins has a monopoly on this one.
‘Pudgy’ on Instagram: Also dominant.
‘Cool Cats’ on Instagram: I tried a something completely different. Look who shows up. It feels like a friendly jab at Cool Cats, well played!
How do all these GIFs show up?
Thanks to the power of hashtags and the volume of Pudgy Penguin GIFs (1,000+), the brand has created a large footprint resulting in the 535 million views and counting.
This type of strategy is a growth hack on the surface and much more:
The Pudgy Penguins team observed a trend in their community behavior: creating memes and GIFs as a means of communication
They capitalized on the trend by uploading 50 GIFs onto GIPHY as a MVP and observed community reception
Upon positive reception, the team scaled up efforts and got the community involved with the GIF ideation
GIPHY platform is integrated with major social media platforms, allowing those that are unfamiliar with NFTs or Pudgy Penguins to discover these cute penguins
When you combine this with Pudgy Penguins broader strategy of focusing on IP partnerships like toys and books, this becomes a multiplier effect for awareness of the brand over time.
Kudos to the Pudgy Penguin team for this approach! At this rate, they’ll cross 1 billion views in a few months or less.
Why is today’s piece so short?!
TPan, I expected to spend 30 minutes reading today’s piece. I feel cheated.
I’m sorry to disappoint. I spent a portion of my writing time recording a video.
Recording videos?! YOU’RE A WRITER.
Yes, I view myself as a writer first but I’m experimenting with video formats to expand reach and impact with my content. Some people (like you), enjoy and prefer reading. Others enjoy and prefer audio or video. I’ll meet them where they’re at.
Don’t fear, Substack will always be the core engine for content 🙂
Stay tuned, Youtube channel coming soon 🎥
See you tomorrow!
Memes do rule the internet.