David Liu, co-founder of The Knot, describes fabricating online controversy under an alias to seed community discussions in AOL chat rooms.
0:00 / 0:29exact quote · 29.7s
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“We had aliases. Like, mine was Anya, and I would sit in this chat room waiting for people to show up, and most people tend to just lurk. They wanted to hear and want, read other people's conversations, and you had to try to figure out a way to get people engaged and get them to participate, and so I always had this one thing that I would write, and to get people started, I would say my fiancé had, forced me to buy a dress two sizes too small, And said, if I can't fit in the dress on the day of the wedding, to not show up.”
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More from David Liu
Disclosure
The Knot targeted demographics completely ignored by incumbent bridal media
“We suddenly realized, based on, you know, also Carly's, you know, belief in the differentiation of our brand, that we would become weddings for the real world, and we defined that as interracial couples. Interdenominational couples. Same sex couples. Hipster c…”
David LiuOct 7, 2019▶ 19:08The Knot: Carley Roney & David Liu (2018)
AssertionNot checkable as stated
Liu: A $350,000 three-book advance funded The Knot for 18 months
“We lived off of that advance for probably a year and a half.”
David LiuOct 7, 2019▶ 29:31The Knot: Carley Roney & David Liu (2018)
AssertionNot publicly verifiable
The Knot topped Bloomingdale's wedding registry within months of launching online
“Within, I think, three or four months... We had close to a 150,000 couples registered in our registry. To put that into context, that's more than what Bloomingdale's was registering back then.”
David LiuOct 7, 2019▶ 32:58The Knot: Carley Roney & David Liu (2018)
AssertionNot checkable as stated
Competitors faxed The Knot's plummeting stock charts to their advertisers
“We had our competitors faxing our stock charts to our advertisers saying, look what's happening. They're going out of business. Do you really want to give them that money?”
David LiuOct 7, 2019▶ 37:05The Knot: Carley Roney & David Liu (2018)
AssertionSupported
Liu: The Knot grew 5% in 2008 while media dropped 20%
“I think, you know, most media companies were down 20%. We grew five percent. You know, we actually grew that year because a lot of the marketers realized that the only people who were going to continue to spend money during this great recession are brides and …”
David LiuOct 7, 2019▶ 43:47The Knot: Carley Roney & David Liu (2018)
Disclosure
Liu: The Knot targeted underserved demographics traditional bridal media ignored
“We suddenly realized, based on, you know, also Carly's, you know, belief in the differentiation of our brand, that we would become weddings for the real world. And we defined that as interracial couples, interdenominational couples, same-sex couples. Hipster c…”
David LiuMar 12, 2018▶ 18:46The Knot: Carley Roney & David Liu
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