In this post, I would like to analyze the Try Guys situation. My goal is to show you how four YouTubers became global sensations, appearing in The Rolling Stones, several online magazines, trending on Twitter, and even being “parodied” on Saturday Night Live. Even in a small community, a similar negative event could easily happen to our own business, our own blog. This is why I believe it is critical to be prepared, because the internet is the internet, and virality does not always appear when you expect it.
Table of Contents
Disclaimer
This article is not meant to pass judgment or gossip. Instead, I’d like to examine the facts from a marketing standpoint. What significance do the events have for the brand? What are the short and long-term implications?
I request that you refrain from sending judgmental messages to those involved and to respect their privacy.
The Social Media Timeline
The entire story began on Reddit in early September. The guys claim that’s when they first learned about the incident, which is supported by their social media activity and subsequent videos. Ned last appeared on Try Guys’ Instagram account on 8th September to promote their cooking show. Ned did not show up in the posts that came after, even though they were advertising their own product. Followers were starting to suspect something, and it didn’t help that Ned had been removed from YouTube videos throughout post-production.
With suspicions growing, Ariel and Ned broke their social media silence on 26th September and posted some family Stories. Fans, however, did not believe them and discovered that the parties involved no longer follow each other on Instagram. On the following day, 27th September, they were all forced to issue a statement:
On 3rd October, the three guys uploaded a video to YouTube with the title “what happened“, and on 6th October, they released their Trypod podcast “okay, let’s talk about it“.
Trending
Around the statement, Twitter went nuts. They began trending around 3 p.m. UCT on 27th September (6 a.m. PDT), and their rank was 30th. They managed to climb to third place a little later, around midnight UCT (5 p.m. PDT), with 366.2K tweets.
The Google search shows the same picture. The most searches for the term “try guys” were made on 27th and 28th September. Another spike occurred after the video was published on 4th October.
YouTube showed an upward trend on 27th and 28th September, with the highest number of searches on 4th October.
These are the raw numbers, but what do they all mean in context?
The Try Guys Brand
To understand why they were trending, we must first examine the brand. We’re talking about four guys who have taken on various online personas. Each of their personalities is distinct and easily identifiable, and it’s a lot of fun to watch them face new challenges. Aside from the individual perspective, another important aspect of the brand is the group dynamic, or how the four guys interact with each other in the situations described above.
Zack – The childlike, fun-loving guy who isn’t afraid to admit his various health issues in order to educate his audience. His colour is green.
Eugene – Asian and gay, he is a strong supporter of basic human rights. He dresses well, is sarcastic, and has a sensitive soul. His colour is purple.
Keith – Well-known for eating anything from anywhere. Confident, loud character, true theater kid. His colour is blue.
Ned – “My wife” guy, as the internet calls him. He always stood for family values in his videos, almost all he could talk about was his wife and kids. His color was pink.
The descriptions may appear simple and empty, but from a marketing standpoint, that is what their characters in their business are made up of.
The Try Guys brand is characterized by the fact that the guys are unproblematic and eager to break the taboo of toxic masculinity. They are considerate, amusing, and devoted to each other and their partners. Their creative content is of high quality, and they tackle more serious, contentious issues. Like them, their content is colourful, and it’s a really great feeling to watch one of their videos after a tiring day. True, their sense of humour isn’t for everyone, but that’s fine.
It’s no surprise, then, that the viewer can easily identify with them. Anyone can pick a favorite “try guy” or appreciate aspects of each of them.
Over the years, the guys have built a strong, and loyal community.
Their main target audience is mostly young adult women who are at university or have already entered the world of work. Most of the content is aimed at them, as there are videos with sexuality, swearing or even alcohol and legal drug use. However, they also have a dedicated teenage girl fan base.
Young adult women who are already earning money are one of the most appreciated communities on the internet. Generally speaking, it’s hard to get their attention, but once they become interested in a topic, it’s easy to keep them. They become dedicated followers, fans who are happy to buy or otherwise support their favourite content creator. As they are happy to share content on their own social media platforms, they don’t mind if some posts are about their favourite YouTubers and influencers.
The Try Guys have a really strong message.
When it comes to target audiences, I believe it is far more important to consider psychology than the type of work someone does. If you emphasize that your primary target audience is a lawyer, professor, or doctor, you must create content that is different than if you emphasize that your primary target audience is a waiter, beautician, or hairdresser. Of course, I’m not saying one is more valuable than the other here. Simply put, the first category allocates their time differently, shops differently, and handles their daily tasks differently than the second. (If you want to learn more about this subject, check out my Buyer Persona guide.)
But the values of the two categories are not necessarily different, in fact! A doctor may like to go to a loud nightclub as much as a hairdresser. A waiter might be allergic to every allergen in existence, just like a professor. A lawyer can be as queer as a beautician.
Commitment to each other, loyalty, unforgettable naive fun, pushing boundaries and striving for greatness – these are the values of Try Guys. These are the things that unite the two categories that society has pitted against each other.
The actions of Ned Fulmer have tainted this message.
He attempted to undermine loyalty and commitment. Cheating with a subordinate as a married man is messy, chaotic, and has a toxic, old-school vibe: a man in charge can do anything without consequences.
The Try Guys’ values and Ned Fulmer’s actions are so diametrically opposed that it blew up the internet. Everybody was talking about it.
Because their following base is so diverse, tweets about them have appeared on a wide variety of people’s feeds. Despite the fact that my Twitter feed is dominated by Formula 1, I saw the news. So one of the F1 fans I follow likes the Try Guys. It was discovered by a friend of mine among the cat memes. It was discovered by my intern among the math and logic problems. It was discovered by one of my clients among high fashion content.
The snowball effect was then easily triggered. As the high-reach magazines and tabloids picked up the news, the story took on a life of its own. With no communication from those involved other than a brief statement, the public was hungry for more information. So people who knew Ned from the past spoke out. Fans made “aged like milk” compilations. Incredulous and outraged TikTok videos were published.
What are the current social media statistics?
Regardless of what occurred, their channel’s audience and viewership grew significantly. They gained 220,000 new followers in the last 30 days, reaching 8 million on 8th October. Every day, more than 1.5 million people watch their videos, and I’m sure that number will continue to grow for some time.
There has also been a slight increase in their Instagram followers, with an average of 5720 per day. Because Instagram is not their primary platform, this figure is not particularly significant.
Ned’s Instagram numbers are similar, but with a minus sign. He’s losing an average of 5,200 followers a day, which means his follower base has shrunk by an average of 156,000 a month.
Alex, on the other hand, was able to increase her numbers. She is gaining 1250 followers per day on average, for a total of 37500 followers per month.
So everything is going well for the Tri Guys, right?
Not necessarily. They did well on PR, but money can be tricky in this situation.
- They had to buy out Ned.
- I am sure they are obligated to pay extra money to the subordinate if she leaves the company.
- They filmed videos in advance, which we will never see.
- They need to remove Ned from non-sponsored videos, so extra editing costs them extra money.
- They removed Ned’s merch from their store.
- They had to hire new professionals – lawyers, HR, PR, and maybe some new staff to help around.
- Their TV show was rescheduled in some states.
- The scandal tarnished their reputation, and they may lose some brand deals as a result.
There you have it. This is my analysis, and I hope you find it useful. I’m not going to write a new follow-up article on this subject, but if I come across any interesting statistics, I’ll update this post.
