What Druski Can Teach Us About Crafting Insights

Druski is hands down the internet’s most favorite comedian.

His path to success was truly unconventional in the sense that he doesn’t have any comedy specials out, nor a TV show, but you know him just the same.

Every few weeks, when one of his skits drops it goes viral because of how great the concepts are.

From the situations to the characters, he creates short sketches that reflect so much of everyday life that he has a career which is leaps and bounds ahead of the competition.

The most recent clip Druski dropped (seen below) has him imitating fashionistas who try too hard to be mysterious.

In fact, his name in the skit is actually “Demure” — a nod to a social trend that people latched on to recently, and a testament to how tapped in he is to what’s going on in culture.

When looking at the video and taking a concentrated look at what Druski’s comedy accomplishes, one thing is very clear:

He has the unique ability to find insights.

FOR THOSE WHO DON’T KNOW WHAT AN INSIGHT IS…

Mark Pollard of Sweathead defines an insight as a hidden truth that sheds new light on a problem.

Insights are the foundation upon which great strategies are built. Great strategies get to the heart of the consumers problem in a novel way and they ultimately inform the creative campaign.

IN THE CASE OF DRUSKI…

The insights he stumbles upon heavily inform the creative that he makes. Though he isn’t technically in the field of Advertising, with a little direction he could crank out creative briefs in no time.

Here are a few lessons I’ve picked in crafting insights recently from looking at Druski’s work:

I. BE AN EXPERT IN HUMAN BEHAVIOR

Understanding human behavior is the crux of everything we do in marketing. From creative to strategy and even media it’s important to understand people & what fuels their buying decisions.

Strategists of all disciplines (comms, brand, etc.) are often tasked with asking themselves questions like:

How do people act/feel/think in this scenario?

Where will this creative live once it’s produced?

How do we authentically connect with the audience we’re talking to?

Although I can’t say for certain that Druski asks himself each of these questions before coming up with a concept for a skit, the evidence of his career progressions shows that he’s an expert in human behavior.

From the mannerisms, to the tone of voice. and style of dress you can tell that he understands each person/group that he pokes fun at in his work.

A good example of his expertise is a skit from a while back where he taps into gaming culture. If we were to do a quick mini-strat it might read something like this:

THE INSIGHT: Online gaming helps us connect with a part of ourselves that doesn’t show up IRL.

THE STRATEGY: Show people that gaming allows you to be your WHOLE self.

THE IDEA: Dudes be whole NERDS when they playing the GAME

Below is a comment from the YouTube short above with over 15k likes. The gaming community clearly appreciated the fact that he was aware of the lingo they use.

II. LET LIFE INFORM YOUR INSIGHT

A good insight should feel like an “unlock” to the problem that you’re facing (another lesson from Pollard, I believe), and your own personal life experiences can be a great source of inso for coming up with them.

For Druski, the observations he’s gleaned from lived experiences help create the necessary unlocks needed for him to make viral content.

These unlocks reflect the consumers reality in a novel way and you can tell each time you watch one of his videos.

Take this viral skit below as an example:

Druski plays the boyfriend who meets his girlfriend’s male best friend during her birthday dinner. He wasn’t feeling the vibe between the two and subsequently spent the rest of the dinner being standoffish.

The strategy for the creative could look something like this:

THE INSIGHT: You don’t care about your partner’s past until it confronts you in the present.

THE STRATEGY: Highlight the tricky social situations that make you question your partner’s loyalty.

THE IDEA: The Guy “Best Friend”

From that strategy, Druski was able to craft a piece of creative that shows a tricky social situation upon which a young woman invites her male “best friend” to her birthday party.

The interaction they share instantly leads Druski to feel insecure (or justified depending on how you look at it).

In this case, the creative works strongly as evidenced by the views, the response on social, and comments like the ones below:

III. PRACTICE CULTURAL FLUENCY

Another aspect of Druski’s work that makes it compelling is that he shows himself to be culturally fluent — that is, he understands the specific nuances of of different regions and cultures in a way that along other internet comedians don’t.

From Ethiopian dads walking around the house barefoot, to the poses fashionistas take in photoshoots — Druski shows himself to be a student and as such the insights flow freely.

Here’s another example from his archives. This time, Druski shows his range by tapping into a pocket of American culture on a regional level.

He accomplishes the job of shedding light on a new culture, while also delivering humor in way that resonates with the region he’s imitating and his audience who may or may not be familiar with it.

The strategy backing this piece of creative might be…

THE INSIGHT: There’s nothing more American, or more Southern that College Football.

THE STRATEGY: Show how deeply rooted American Culture is in CFB

THE IDEA: Bama & The Tide (Feat. Roll Tide Willy0

And again, the comments tell the tale…

IV. RELY ON CULTURAL THEMES

During the pandemic, Druski created a format on Instagram Live where he’d answer the live requests of random followers globally and give them a chance to showcase their skills (or roast them if they weren’t that good at what they were doing).

While it started as just a social media play and a parody of the legendary Cash Money Records, this segment became what we all know now as Coulda Been Records.

Coulda Been is culturally resonant because it taps into so many music industry tropes:

The CEO that doesn’t pay his artists.

Record contracts imploring you to “sign your life away,”

The big security guard who’s job is to scare off anybody that comes near you.

All the things that make up classic music industry movies.

It’s hard to tell whether all of the talent on Coulda Been are serious in their endeavors. Some seem sincere, while others appear to be aspiring comedians themselves.

Nevertheless, Druski has taken Coulda Been on the road, and has even been a part of a few livestreams. Each time it’s hilarious because the creative is built on a really great insight that informed his work.

EPILOGUE

Druski has been touted by fans as more of a sociologist than a comedian these days because of his expertise in capturing the feelings of the culture. I have no doubt that his work is gonna continue to grow, and personally I think it’d be dope for him to do his own show at some point.

Until then, I’ll keep watching the skits. There’s enough material to keep you laughing for years.

One.