My favorite podcast also happens to be one of the largest and most popular in the world.
From its website: “With over 280 million podcast downloads, two sell-out world tours, an HBO comedy special, Hollywood fans including Lin-Manuel Miranda, Dame Emma Thompson, Dan Levy, Nicholas Hoult & Michael Sheen and rave reviews from the likes of Variety, The Guardian and Time Magazine, My Dad Wrote A Porno is quite simply ‘a cultural phenomenon' (The Sunday Times).”
Yup. You read that right. The podcast is called “My Dad Wrote a Porno,” and it’s exactly what it sounds like.
Jamie Morton’s father self-published a pornographic book on Amazon, titled Belinda Blinked 1: A modern story of sex, erotica and passion. How the sexiest sales girl in business earns her huge bonus by being the best at removing her high heels, and gave it to his son.
Instead of recoiling in horror, Jamie decided to read it out loud to his best friends James Cooper and Alice Levine, and the My Dad Wrote A Porno podcast was born.
It was an instant hit. Fewer than four months after the first episode aired, My Dad Wrote A Porno already had over one million listens. Three months later, they hit two million downloads (including two from within Vatican City—much to Jamie’s, James’, and Alice’s confusion and delight).
My Dad Wrote A Porno blew up, fast. Exponentially. Almost every media piece (and interview with the creators) I read while researching My Dad Wrote A Porno’s meteoric rise referred to the podcast as a word-of-mouth success: a phenomenon birthed from people who loved it so much that they couldn’t help but spread the word.
And while I don’t have any difficulty believing that Belinda’s sexual misadventures have been spoken about from person to person in an avalanche of “Have you heard of—?” recommendations, how did it become so successful so quickly?
How did people find out that this mind-boggling, emotionally-scarring, intrusive-thought-provoking masterpiece existed in the first place?
Was it truly the marketing unicorn that so many media pieces paint it out to be?
I wanted to find out, so I dove deep into the internet, and studied the first year of My Dad Wrote A Porno’s existence—starting back when it was first unleashed upon the world and began saving and damning us in equal measure.
A lot of information was unavailable to me—hidden past twitter’s publicly-saved tweet limits and broken links—so I am operating with a patchwork of knowledge here, and relying on clues, context, and assumptions to fill in gaps between details.
That being said, I feel like I did find an answer to my question of how did My Dad Wrote A Porno become so huge and popular, in such a short period of time? Was it through word of mouth, or was there a big marketing campaign?
The answer is yes. To both.
My Dad Wrote A Porno has a lot of factors that worked in its favor.
1.) It’s good. It is so good.
My Dad Wrote A Porno is bust-a-gut, get-stared-at-in-public-because-you’re-gasping-and-wheezing funny. This is the word-of-mouth part. People listen to what is simultaneously the best and worst thing they have ever heard in their life, and need to spread the joy (and pain) to others.
2.) It was made by the right people.
Jamie Morton, James Cooper, and Alice Levine brought the magic combination of established skills, camaraderie, and public presence to help My Dad Wrote A Porno immediately pop up on the public radar and stay there.
Jamie Morton is a writer and director, James Cooper is an executive producer, and Alice Levine is a television and radio presenter. By the time episode one of the podcast was released, My Dad Wrote A Porno was already polished, professionally packaged, edited, and produced, as well as hosted by Acast, and had people in media (presumably through James Cooper and Alice Levine) who were already aware of its existence, and were curious.
(We can see an example of this in Elle UK’s season one media coverage of My Dad Wrote A Porno, when they wrote: "Who you're listening to: BBC Radio 1 DJ and ELLE contributing Editor Alice Levine, joined by film director Jamie Morton and TV producer James Cooper”)
3.) It received lots of media coverage.
Before even the trailer for season one dropped, My Dad Wrote A Porno had already received media coverage in The Guardian Guide, and ELLE UK.
This trend continued, with season one of My Dad Wrote A Porno being written about (and recommended) by the Metro, Coach Magazine, Stylist Magazine, ELLE UK, Telegraph, and Buzzfeed (source: www.instagram.com/mydadwrotea/). And those are only the ones posted on the official @mydadwrotea instagram account!
I couldn’t access season one tweets from the official @dadwroteaporno Twitter account, because they were hidden behind Twitter’s 800-tweet display limit. I’m sure that had I been able to comb through those, I would have found even more media coverage.
Needless to say, a lot of publications were talking about the madness that had been released out into the world, and telling people that it was worth a listen.
4.) It had massive celebrity endorsements.
Five days after episodes one and two aired, Elijah Wood retweeted My Dad Wrote A Porno’s official twitter account out to his (then) 820K followers.
A few months later, he became the podcast’s very first celebrity guest star. My Dad Wrote A Porno has since had Joe Lycett, Daisy Ridley, Rachel Bloom, Thomas Middleditch, Michael Sheen, Mara Wilson, Nicholas Hoult, Ben Barnes, Hayley Atwell, Lin-Manual Miranda, Josh Groban, Dan Levy, Dame Emma Thompson join in as guest stars, just to name a few.
…So, with all of this media coverage and free advertising from celebrities, why do I agree that My Dad Wrote A Porno can be described as a word-of-mouth success, rather than the happy result of a marketing campaign?
In short: it grew too large, too quickly.
Even if every single person who picked up or came across one of the media publications decided to listen to the podcast, the numbers wouldn’t even come close to reaching how many listens and downloads My Dad Wrote A Porno received a mere six months after being released.
Let me bring you through a brief timeline, curated from the official My Dad Wrote A Porno Instagram account:
October 3, 2015 — My Dad Wrote A Porno receives its first piece of press in The Guardian Guide.
October 4, 2015 — Episodes one and two of My Dad Wrote A Porno are released.
October 5, 2015 (two episodes public) — ELLE UK names My Dad Wrote A Porno one of their "11 Podcasts to Download Immediately.”
October 6, 2015 (two episodes public) — My Dad Wrote A Porno hits #11 in the iTunes chart.
October 9, 2015 (two episodes public) — Elijah Wood retweets the official My Dad Wrote A Porno twitter account to his (then) 820K followers.
October 22, 2015 (four episodes public) — The Metro names My Dad Wrote A Porno their “Podcast of the Week.”
November 17, 2015 (eight episodes public) — Coach Magazine calls My Dad Wrote A Porno a “brilliant show” and recommends it to its readers
November 19, 2015 (eight episodes public) — Stylist Magazine publishes a small blurb describing My Dad Wrote A Porno.
December 4(ish), 2015 (ten episodes public) — ELLE UK writes about My Dad Wrote A Porno, saying: “Warning: you will laugh until you cry.”
January 20, 2016 (season one complete; season two hasn’t begun, yet) — My Dad Wrote A Porno hits one million listens.
March 12, 2016 (season one complete; season two hasn’t begun, yet) — Jamie Morton, co-creator of My Dad Wrote A Porno, publishes a piece in the Telegraph, titled: “Why Dad’s erotic novel is the best gift he’s given me.”
April 25, 2016 (season one complete; season two hasn’t begun, yet) — My Dad Wrote A Porno hits two million downloads.
…More happened in the months immediately following: they announced the (now bestselling) My Dad Wrote A Porno book, introduced (and immediately sold out) three live shows dates, released the first episode of season two, and had Elijah Woods join as their very first celebrity guest star…quickly followed by Joe Lycett and Daisy Ridley, and Rachel Bloom.
My Dad Wrote A Porno just got bigger, and bigger, and it’s still growing.
According to co-creator James Cooper’s Linkedin page, My Dad Wrote A Porno now has “[over] 300 million downloads across 6 seasons, HBO comedy special, 2 world tours across 11 countries (including shows at Sydney Opera House, Radio City Music Hall and Royal Albert Hall), and [a] best selling book.”
Is it possible that word-of-mouth had this much growing power in such a short amount of time?
Well…yes!
Recommending a recording of a man reading his father’s erotica out loud to his two best friends while they sit at his kitchen table to friends, family, and strangers may not seem appealing, but give the podcast a listen and then see how you feel.
As @theresamarx commented on @mydadwrotea’s January 20th, 2016 celebratory ‘1 million listens’ instagram post: “Made 2 strangers on the train listen to your podcast after they kept on giving me weird looks for laughing out loud by myself. Belinda fan club +2.”
Or, to quote co-creator Alice Levine on season one, episode two, titled ‘The Leather Room’: "I love it. I love it. I spend a lot of my time talking about this book. I am evangelical about it. From chapter one, unlike many books, I was drawn in--to a level of slight obsession. And I haven't read a book since approx' year nine.”
So, to recap: how did My Dad Wrote A Porno become the word-of-mouth marketing unicorn giant that it is today?
The podcast is amazing.
It was made by the right people. It entered the public sphere polished and well-produced, and attached to some already very-well-known names.
It received a massive amount of media coverage during season one (as even prior to season one beginning), and then word-of-mouth helped it spread like wildfire.
It received a massive celebrity endorsement early on from Elijah Wood, and free advertising on his twitter account.
Starting in season two, it had a steady influx of huge celebrity guest stars who would come on and rave about the podcast and (presumably) mention guest-staring on their own social media accounts (more free advertising).
The podcast is amazing.
If you are looking to add some wonder and horror to your life in equal measure, I highly recommend listening to an episode or two.
…Just don’t do it when your family is nearby.