Scott Dikkers
- Founder of the iconic comedy empire The Onion
- Public Relations and Marketing Authority
In Person-Fee 🛈
Fee Range
$15,000 - $20,000
Virtual Fee:
$10,000 - $15,000
Travels From
Illinois
Scott Dikkers Speaker Biography
With The Onion, Scott Dikkers created the original “fake news” platform and grew it into one of today’s most recognized comedy brands. He shares his experiences in how being committed to a unique vision—and standing firm in the face of seemingly impossible challenges and threats—can translate into genuine differentiation and robust brand equity for any organization.
As co-founder and longest-serving editor-in-chief of The Onion, Scott has a deep appreciation of the improbable. It’s a quality that not only describes how he created a celebrated comedy institution, but also of his escape from dire childhood circumstances.
A small, shy kid, Scott endured an upbringing marked by poverty, divorce, bullying, and even a suicide attempt at the age of eight. He found solace and inspiration from Mad, the groundbreaking satirical magazine, which fed his passion for comedy and later helped inspire him to create The Onion.
Scott has written multiple comedy books, including the bestselling How to Write Funny and Our Dumb Century, which sold over a million copies, debuting as a #1 New York Times and #1 Amazon bestseller, and Our Dumb World, which also debuted on the New York Times bestseller list.
In his latest book, Outrageous Marketing, and his many speaking engagements, Scott details how he staffed the company with quirky individuals who often had unstable family environments similar to his and shared his dark sense of humor. You’ll laugh as you hear how the freedom and support he gave his writing team enabled The Onion to break through the noise in a media-saturated landscape, overcome doubters and legal obstacles, and prove time and again that being outrageous leads to the best possible version of your brand. Furthermore, you’ll understand how some of the most basic principles embraced by Scott can help you transcend your organization’s marketing limitations, get the best work out of your employees, and attract devoted lifelong customers.
The Funny Story Behind The Funny Stories
Scott Dikkers tells the tale of his beginnings in comedy and getting The Onion started, and shares funny stories about how he struggled in the early years, and then achieved great success. As a farm boy with no education, he'll paint the picture of a starry-eyed kid who loved reading Mad Magazine and dreamt of one day getting his work published to improbably founding the world's first humor website and heading up America's longest-surviving humor publication. Dikkers connects his experience to the college audience's lives by pointing out how much more opportunity they have to start something new like The Onion today, explaining that this is a magical time in their lives when they can make just about anything happen for themselves.
Peeling the Onion: The inside story on Marketing & Branding the Original Fake News
How did The Onion, a small college newspaper from Madison, Wisconsin, compete in the cutthroat world of entertainment marketing to become one of the most recognizable and successful comedy brands in the world? You may be surprised to learn it was done without spending a penny on marketing. Scott Dikkers, The Onion’s longest-serving editor-in-chief who founded theonion.com, helped found the print publication that preceded it, and led the company’s effort to build the brand in its formative decades, tells the unlikely and outrageous tale of exactly how The Onion—now a multi-million-dollar company with tens of millions of monthly views online—thrived against all odds to achieve heightened brand awareness and a fiercely loyal fan base. He leaves corporate audiences inspired to do the same for their own companies.
