How AIB uses content marketing to keep it fresh and engaging?

All India Backchod aka AIB is amongst the fastest growing Indian comedy groups. Initially, it constituted of just two members – Gursimran Khamba and Tanmay Bhat – who initiated AIB’s first online presence by putting out a comedy podcast in 2012; after which Rohan Joshi and Ashish Shakya soon joined them to form the group we very well know today. They now make sketches, podcasts, web shows and perform musical and improvised comedy on stage. Their YouTube channel has over 2.2 million subscribers and over 200 million views. Needless to say, they have come a long way!

One of the biggest challenges in the comedy industry is to keep your content fresh, engaging, relevant and relatable. Hence it is axiomatic that AIB also had to make efforts in this direction and ensure that their content is well received by the audience.

Here is a list of things you can learn about content from this eclectic group:

1)    Regularity

One of the most vital things to keep in mind when putting out content is to be regular with it so people don’t forget you. If you are active in publishing content for a couple of months and are successful in gaining some traction amongst your audience but then start to post content intermittently when the ‘mood strikes’, chances are your audience will forget you and move on.

AIB has always been consistent in putting out content. Whether it is podcasts, stand-ups, YouTube videos or web shows, AIB has always made an effort to stay current and relevant. They ensured that people don’t forget them and worked towards creating a digital footprint that is ubiquitous.

2)    Diversify

AIB’s first ever comedy platform was podcasts but they didn’t make that their only source. Even though their basic premise remained predominantly the same- insult comedy- they diversified in terms of issues they touched upon and platforms they published their content on. They do stand-up comedy, post comedy sketches and web shows on YouTube, they do podcasts in which they talk to celebrities and professional comedians and their flagship spoof-bollywood award show ‘The Royal Turds’ deserves a special here as it put them on the map as being edgy, witty, creative and ofcourse humorous.

Besides this, in 2015, they launched an advertising vertical to help ‘turn start-ups into massive brands’ called Vidyapanti. They create edgy and creative content for brands. Their first campaign – ‘Creep Qawali’- was for TrulyMadly, which was received very well by the audience. They also launched their own news comedy series called On Air with AIB in October 2015 which aims to find comedy in tragedy. They have taken often controversial stances on many liberal issues.

It goes without saying; they are an epitome of diversity.

3)    Experiment

Swaying away from spoofs/sketches and attempting to take on controversial stances and penalizing India’s political system in a humorous manner to keep it interesting for the average Joe are all part of the experimentation process, which AIB has been known to do and 9 times out of 10 they are successful in doing so. But we would like to discuss here the 1 time it wasn’t received well by a bunch of dogmatic believers with parochial views who just want to exacerbate situations as they have nothing better to do (clearly we are AIB supporters) and how AIB handled the situation.

The infamous AIB Knockout garnered over 8 million views and the intention was to show celebrities laugh at themselves, so what if it the language used was a bit vulgar? Don’t we curse on a daily basis? Anyway, AIB took the video down and released the following statement – “People who’ve been following our work will know that we’ve always tried to experiment with content be it on Youtube or a live comedy show, with the sole intent of making people laugh and/or think”.

Rest assured they will continue to experiment and…

4)    Collaboration 

Last but not the least, to keep it interesting and fresh AIB has been known to collaborate with the likes of Lilly Singh aka Superwoman, Kalki Koechlin, Irrfan Khan, Alia Bhatt and other influential comedy artists. They never fail to generate content that will tickle your funny bones. While collaborating they make videos that are a bit different than what they usually produce, with influences from the collaborator the final product is a mix of both sides and ideas which leads to the creation of a third, very unique production.

So keep this in mind when you are stressed out by a creative block.

“Be original, patient and willing to experiment with ideas” – AIB