We had a little bit of fun on New Year's Eve.
We decided to have a pun party.
What’s a pun party, you might be wondering? A pun party is when you arrive dressed up as a play on words.
Believe me, the ideas we had thrown around while preparing for New Year's Eve were a whole lot of fun. Ideas like putting a cross around your neck and turning up as a crossdresser, or putting the label 'Richard' on your head and introducing yourself as a dickhead. My 15-year-old son suggested grabbing a cooking pot from the kitchen and putting it on his head so he could come as a pothead.
The ideas just kept coming.
As you can imagine, by the time our friends started arriving on New Year's Eve, I knew I had to film it.
A brilliant icebreaker
The theme for the party did two things.
First, it was a brilliant icebreaker. Not everyone who turned up knew each other, so arriving dressed up and explaining what you were meant to be was an easy way to get conversation started.
Second, it was hilarious. It brought out ideas and a creative side of people that we hadn’t seen before.
So naturally, after the party, I put together a quick Instagram reel showing some of the costumes.
And then something interesting happened.
The reel went viral.
When a social media post suddenly goes viral
Now when people say “viral” these days, it can mean a lot of things. But in this case, I’m talking about over one million views within a few weeks.
For something that was never intended to be anything more than a fun post from New Year's Eve.
And of course, once that happened, the marketing brain kicked in.
Could I have monetised it?
Should I have put together a Pun Party Idea Guide that people could download for $4.99? Aiming for a 10% conversion, that could have been a tidy $500,000 idea!
Maybe I still will…
But what the experience really highlighted was something far more interesting from a marketing perspective.
It showed me what gets attention.
Attention is easy. Conversion is hard
The reel generated:
over 1 million views
thousands of likes
thousands of shares
thousands of saves
But here is the interesting part. Almost nobody clicked through to my profile. Which highlights an important viral marketing lesson.
Attention and commercial value are two very different things.
Humour spreads quickly online. If something makes people laugh they are far more likely to send it to a friend. That is exactly what happened here. People watched it, shared it, had a laugh, and moved on.
That is why funny content travels so well on platforms like Instagram and TikTok.
But it does highlight an important point about marketing.
Attention on its own does not grow a business.
What viral content marketing actually teaches us
This experience reinforced something I talk about regularly with clients.
Marketing activity and marketing outcomes are not the same thing.
You can generate reach, clicks, impressions, and engagement. A piece of content might even go viral.
But unless there is a clear pathway between attention and action, most of that activity never turns into commercial value.
In this case, if the reel had included a simple call to action such as “Comment PUN to receive the Pun Party Idea Guide” then even a tiny percentage of those viewers could have converted into downloads.
But because the reel was purely entertainment, the attention never had anywhere to go.
And that is a useful reminder for anyone building a business online.
Turning attention into real growth
The pun party reel was never meant to be a marketing experiment. It was simply a fun moment from New Year's Eve.
But it ended up reinforcing something that sits at the heart of good marketing strategy.
Humour works for generating attention.
Turning that attention into real commercial value takes thought, structure, and strategy.
That is the difference between content that entertains people for a few seconds and marketing that actually contributes to business growth.
And occasionally, a silly party theme can end up delivering a surprisingly useful marketing insight.
Jacqui Gage-Brown
📷 This party idea was epic, got us laughing, created a reel, which sparked a marketing lesson. You never know where the next one comes from.
