How Alex Hormozi Uses the Kevin Hart Meme to Revive Dead Leads

Most sales follow-ups are tragic. They start with "Just checking in" or "Wanted to bump this to the top of your inbox." They smell like desperation.

Alex Hormozi stopped sending them.

When prospects "ghosted" him after the initial contact, he didn't send a generic text nudge. He sent a single image. No context. No "just circling back."

He sent the wide-eyed, confused face of Kevin Hart meme.

This works because it violates the unwritten rules of professional correspondence. Business emails are supposed to be stiff. They are supposed to be polite. They are supposed to be boring.

When you break that frame, you force a reaction.

Pattern interruption breaks the scroll

Your prospect's inbox is a wall of gray text. Their brain filters it automatically. Spam. Spam. Bill. Boss. Spam.

The Kevin Hart image triggers pattern interruption. It is a visual stop sign.

The brain recognizes the face before it recognizes the sales intent. Because the image is funny, it disarms the tension. The expression perfectly matches the feeling of "I am waiting for you to reply and it is getting awkward."

Text demands cognitive load. You have to read it. You have to process the tone. You have to formulate a polite excuse.

A meme demands nothing. You see it. You laugh. You reply.

"If a picture is worth 1000 words, a meme is probably 10000." ~ Elon Musk

Proof that memes outlive their source material

You might worry that using pop culture makes you look outdated. The data suggests the opposite. Memes often outlive the very media that spawned them.

Look at the meme from the show Dexter.

Sergeant Doakes, the character who delivered the line, died in Season 2. That was 2007. He has been dead in the show's canon for nearly 2 decades. The protagonist, Dexter, had 8 seasons and a 2021 reboot.

Yet, if you search "Dexter" on X's GIF search today, Doakes often appears first.

A supporting character who hasn't been on screen in 18 years outranks the show's star.

This proves cultural persistence. The meme detached from the show. It became its own entity. It became shorthand for "I caught you."

This is why Hormozi's strategy works. He isn't relying on people liking Kevin Hart's stand-up. He is relying on people recognizing the symbol of Kevin Hart's face.

Familiarity bias builds trust

Marketing usually tries to be high-fidelity. Polished graphics. Perfect lighting. On-brand colors. Like /r/Instagramreality.

Meme marketing succeeds because it is low-fidelity like TikTok. It looks like something a friend would send. This triggers familiarity bias. We trust things we have seen before.

When a prospect sees a polished marketing graphic, their guard goes up. Someone is trying to sell me something.

When they see Kevin Hart or Sergeant Doakes, their guard stays down.

This is why resurrected memes outperform fresh creative. The audience already has context. They don't need to learn what it means—they already know. That saved cognitive load translates to higher engagement.

This works beyond sales. Social media. Paid ads. Content marketing. Anywhere you need to stop the scroll and earn attention.

SaaS companies use trending memes in Facebook ads, LinkedIn carousels, and email campaigns. The familiarity creates instant pattern recognition. Your brain processes known images faster than unknown ones.

How to resurrect viral moments for your marketing

Find memes that are trending again after years of dormancy. Monitor GIF search rankings on X or Giphy. Look for characters or moments that dominated pop culture 5 or 10 years ago and are suddenly relevant again.

Connect those memes to your product. If you're selling email software, pair the Doakes stare with copy about open rates. If you're in fintech, use it for fraud detection messaging. The meme provides the hook. Your product provides the context.

Test them in cold outreach first. Send a meme as a follow-up when prospects go silent. Track reply rates. If it works, scale it into paid ads and social content.

The lesson isn't to use the Doakes meme specifically. The lesson is to watch what culture resurrects, then borrow that attention for your own channels.

Top Tweets of the day

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