Michael and Michael Have Issues

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Michael and Michael, I Hope You’re Reading This
Posted on July 8th, 2009 by Judi Cutrone

Digital marketing isn’t exactly foreign territory to hardworking comedians. Just ask Dane Cook, who capitalized on MySpace’s popularity with his target audience (i.e. guys who crush beer cans on their foreheads) early on in his stand-up career, way before a social networking page was fully realized as a valuable marketing asset.

Now, although it seems just plain common sense for everyone from Jerry Seinfeld to Jim Gaffigan to sport their own fan pages alongside the rest of the entertainment world, comedians seem to actually be gaining the upper hand when it comes to sound-bite friendly sites like Twitter. And it makes sense, considering Twitter’s content limitations. After all, who would you rather follow? That guy down the hall who keeps gabbing about his Subway sandwich or shock-comics like Sarah Silverman, who actually hands out biting one-liners for a living?

For these funny guys and girls, Twitter is child’s play and they’re frankly a welcome relief from cause-minded celebs who use 140 characters or less to tell you what they think of what’s happening in the Middle East these days. Not only that, some of them are even doing a bang-up job of utilizing the site for self-promotion.

Take Michael Showalter and Michael Ian Black, for instance. Their new show Michael and Michael Have Issues debuts in just one week but the digital marketing campaign started months ago when both Michaels started blogging the production process back in April, putting up videos and sneak pics, behind-the-scenes photos and touting guest appearances. They’ve used the standard Comedy Central webspace to create a grassroots marketing campaign, enlisting loyal fans of the duo to post the show poster on their blogs and Facebook in order to spread the word to their friends about the series premiere.

My own personal favorite was the staged Twitter fight from last week. Actually, I don’t know if it was staged or not, but people should start fighting on Twitter more often. Showalter and Black essentially slipped into their show characters, a pair of bickering sketch performers, and used Twitter to air out some of their issues. It was a small taste of the new show and was way more entertaining than Christina Applegate’s word puzzles.
We’ll have to wait and see if the digital marketing efforts will pay off when the show premieres next Wednesday. All I know is that I, for one, will definitely be watching.

Judi Cutrone is a digital copywriter who has navigated the world of web design, brand marketing and new media initiatives since 2006. Follow her on Twitter and www.thecreme.wordpress.com.

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