Peeling The Onion: Joe Fullman Plays It For Laughs—Seriously
While humor—obviously—has been critical to the success of The Onion, it’s not the end all and be all, according to its head of marketing.
Joe Fullman has taken a self-described “eclectic” route to become head of marketing for The Onion, as well as its other properties and enterprises, including the Onion Reach Network and Onion Labs. But perhaps most amusing, it was his failure to get a job selling children’s shoes that led to him where he is today.
“I think that humor is definitely the thing that has made The Onion name successful for the past 30 years. But, really, more than humor, even, it’s consistency,” he said. “We can really innovate when it comes to content without having to change the format too quickly. It’s essentially a really conservative institution, from a creative standpoint, because there are formats that we’ve had since the early days of print that are still going strong—formats of jokes, formats of features. I think that the ability to iterate, sometimes for decades, on a single format has been something that’s super valuable.”
But, just to be clear, The Onion is really, really funny.
Highlights from this week’s “Marketing Today” podcast include:
- Fullman discusses The Onion and its properties. (2:50)
- “Let’s go wild with ideas.”—Fullman talks about Onion Labs. (7:15)
- The Onion makes bigger bets in content marketing. (12:44)
- Fullman breaks down content marketing. (18:56)
- Allowing for experimentation (and failure) at a modest scale: Be (sort of) unafraid. (24:56)
- Fullman’s defining moment: If the shoe (store) doesn’t fit, try advertising. (28:46)
- Serving the institution of The Onion. (31:35)
- Programmatic creative: It’s promising and terrifying—and probably boring. (37:48)