How Marketing Ideas turned comedians roast into subscribers

Tom Orbach engineered a growth moment by turning himself into the joke.

He bought a ticket to a tech roast by Socially Inept in NYC, volunteered to be the target, and used the stage time to slip in his full domain—marketingideas.com—between punchlines.

When the comedians later posted the bit to Instagram, the clip hit 154k views and drove thousands of new subscribers.

The Genius Trap: Buy the Ticket, Become the Bit

He didn’t wait for virality to arrive—he created a situation worth watching.

At a live tech roast, he raised his hand when the hosts asked for volunteers and committed to the premise: 10 minutes of total comedic demolition, zero defensiveness, all in service of the gag and the exposure.

• He accepted a full-on roast—no control, no edits, just chaos.

• He repeated the clean, memorable domain (“marketing ideas dot com”) whenever the jokes opened a window.

• He treated the set like an ad read disguised as entertainment.

While the crowd (about 1,000 people) laughed at increasingly brutal bits, he kept his cool and stayed in character.

The domain mention wasn’t spammy; it became part of the rhythm—quick, legible, and funny precisely because it broke the tension.

The comedians got better material, the audience got a stronger laugh, and the brand got etched into memory.

The Distribution: Instagram Did the Heavy Lifting

The comedians later uploaded the clip to Instagram.

That single post reached 154k views fast, converting curiosity into subscribers.

Because the content was inherently watchable, the algorithm had something worth amplifying—and the callout (“marketing ideas dot com”) was impossible to miss or mishear.

• Result: thousands of new subscribers from one video.

• Mechanism: high-retention entertainment first, brand mention second.

Most marketing tries to piggyback on content. This flipped the script. By becoming the content—and a good sport about it—Tom Orbach earned the right to be remembered.

Comedy club social feeds already have distribution; giving them a killer segment plugs a brand into that flywheel.

• Entertainment > interruption. Viewers opt in rather than tune out.

• Memorability scales when the brand line is simple and repeatable.

• Social proof compounds when the clip lives on the comedian’s channel, not just the brand’s.

Playbook: How to Run This (If You Dare)

There’s no guarantee of virality, but the odds improve when the format is built to travel.

• Pick the right room: live shows with active social channels and a track record of posting clips.

• Volunteer early: give the comics maximum time to work with you.

• Craft a sticky line: a clean, speakable domain that’s easy to recall.

• Commit to the bit: don’t fight the jokes; feed them.

• Follow up fast: when the clip drops, add context in comments and capture momentum with a simple subscribe path.

Tom Orbach didn’t buy impressions; he earned attention by becoming the story. The highest-ROI marketing happens when the brand is the thing people choose to watch—and when the joke lands, the subscribers do, too.

Top Tweets of the day

1/

Genius strategy tbh.

Influencer marketing is dead. Content marketing via those who know how to go viral consistently is where its at.

2/

Copy what works. Cal AI makes a load of money and their founders yap a lot in public so it only made sense to copy them.

Lesson when you make a lot of money is to stay quiet. There's no benefit of bragging. The downside is greater than the upside.

3/

This AI video is insane. It uses 2 mainstream characters that are going viral and a meme rn: Donald Trump and Sergent Doakes (Dexter).

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