Tahlia Kennedy recently shared something that caught my attention: "To build a $100M business, we have to pull marketing stunts no business has done before (in 13 days you'll watch it unfold)." Then she followed it with the kind of line that instantly signals a real campaign, not a fluffy idea: "What if we created a internship and call it a 'kinternship' (obviously)."

That tiny post has a lot going on. It’s not just an internship announcement. It’s a public challenge, a community prompt, and a structured content series wrapped in a playful format ("Think The Bachelor, but for marketing!"). And it’s a useful case study for anyone trying to build attention without burning trust.

In this piece, I want to expand on what Tahlia’s getting right, what makes the "kinternship" concept work, and how you can borrow the mechanics (without copying the surface-level gimmicks) to build your own repeatable growth engine.

Why "marketing stunts" work when they’re actually systems

A lot of teams hear "stunt" and think: one viral moment, one big spike, one lucky break. But the best stunts are closer to product design than party tricks. They have:

A clear hook (simple enough to repeat)
A format that creates episodes (so the story keeps moving)
Built-in participation (so the audience feels like part of it)
Constraints (so it doesn’t sprawl into chaos)

Tahlia’s framing matters here. She doesn’t say, "We want to go viral." She says, "To build a $100M business, we have to pull marketing stunts no business has done before." That positions the stunt as an input to a bigger ambition, not the ambition itself.

Key insight: A stunt isn’t a moment. It’s a container that produces moments.

The "kinternship" hook: a name people want to repeat

Calling an internship a "kinternship" is silly in exactly the right way. It’s a coined term that:

Signals brand personality quickly
Makes the initiative feel proprietary (even if the structure is familiar)
Improves shareability because it’s a single word people can quote

This matters because most internship announcements sound identical. "We’re hiring interns" is informational. "We’re running a kinternship" is a premise. Premises travel.

There’s also a smart bit of timing baked into the post: "in 13 days you'll watch it unfold." A countdown creates anticipation, and anticipation creates returning viewers.

Casting as content: why video applications are the real acquisition channel

Tahlia mentions they "got flooded with video applications from all over Australia" but could only select five. That detail does three things:

It establishes demand (social proof without bragging)
It raises perceived stakes (competition = drama)
It creates a pool of user-generated content (UGC) even before the show begins

Video applications are underrated marketing assets because they’re honest. They show the audience how people talk about your brand when you’re not controlling every word. Even if you never publish the raw applications, you can extract themes:

Why people want to be involved
Which messages resonate
What your community is actually like

If you’re building a community-led brand, your applicants are often your best copywriters.

The game-show format: episode structure beats random posting

"The whole 3 weeks are going to be run like a game show." That’s the strategy hiding in plain sight.

A game show gives you:

A beginning (introductions)
A middle (challenges, conflict, learning)
A finale (winner, outcomes, recap)

And most importantly: it gives you a reason to post every day without sounding repetitive. The plot is the posting plan.

Key insight: When content has a format, consistency stops feeling like effort and starts feeling like production.

The bingo card mechanic: constraints that create creativity

Tahlia says, "Each Kintern gets a bingo card with a series of challenges on it." This is a strong move because bingo cards:

Turn vague goals ("do marketing") into concrete actions
Make progress visible (which is satisfying to follow)
Encourage variety (a grid naturally pushes different challenge types)
Enable comparison (audiences love seeing different approaches)

If you’ve ever struggled with content fatigue, this is the antidote: pre-commit to constraints.

What makes a good challenge?

A good challenge has four qualities:

Clear output: a deliverable you can show (a landing page, a script, a 30-second video)
Time-boxed: done in hours or a day, not weeks
Judgable: you can evaluate it with simple criteria (clarity, conversions, novelty)
Teach-able: viewers learn something by watching

In other words, challenges should produce artifacts, not just effort.

"Now we need your help": turning spectators into collaborators

The post ends with: "Now we need your help (pls)…. What would you like to see them do?"

That’s not just engagement bait. It’s distributed ideation. If you ask your audience to propose challenges, you’re doing three valuable things:

Market research: you discover what your audience finds interesting
Commitment: commenters become emotionally invested in outcomes
Permission: you can later say, "You asked for this" when you publish

This is how a campaign becomes community property (in a good way). When people feel partial ownership, they share more naturally.

Ideas for Kinternship challenges (that people will actually watch)

If you want the game-show vibe without turning it into pure theatre, balance entertainment with real marketing work. Here are challenge ideas that map to outcomes:

Awareness challenges

Pitch the product in one sentence, then test 10 variations with strangers
Create a 15-second hook video and iterate based on retention
Write a contrarian LinkedIn post that sparks debate (without being reckless)

Conversion challenges

Build a landing page in 90 minutes and run a $50 experiment
Redesign onboarding email #1 to increase reply rate
Create a "no-code" lead magnet and drive 100 sign-ups

Community challenges

Host a 20-minute live session teaching one tactic learned that day
Interview a customer and publish a 5-clip highlight pack
Run a micro-challenge for followers and report results publicly

Brand + creativity challenges

Produce a "brand manifesto" in 60 seconds, then get community votes
Turn one feature into three different story angles (fear, desire, proof)
Write a competitor teardown that stays respectful and useful

The key is to design tasks that are watchable and measurable. Viewers should be able to say, "I learned something" or "I want to try that." Ideally both.

The metrics that matter for a stunt like this

If you run a campaign like Tahlia’s, don’t judge it only by likes. Track:

Attention: view-through rate, saves, profile clicks
Participation: comments with suggestions, challenge submissions, shares
Conversion: email sign-ups, demo requests, waitlist growth
Talent pipeline: quality of applicants, referrals, future hires
Brand lift: inbound DMs, partnership interest, press mentions

A three-week format is long enough to generate real business outcomes, not just vibes.

The risk: stunts that outshine the product

There’s one trap with any flashy format: people remember the show but not the brand.

The fix is simple (but not easy): make the product or customer outcome part of the challenges. If every episode teaches a real marketing principle tied to your offer, the audience connects the dots. Entertainment pulls them in; usefulness makes them stay.

Borrow the mechanics, not the gimmick

What I like most about Tahlia Kennedy’s post is that it’s playful while still being structured. "Kinternship" isn’t just a cute name. It’s a campaign architecture:

a hook people repeat
a countdown people anticipate
a game structure people follow
a community prompt people contribute to

If you’re trying to grow a brand today, that’s the play: design marketing like a product. Build a container that creates stories, artifacts, and participation—then let your audience help steer it.

This blog post expands on a viral LinkedIn post by Tahlia Kennedy, Marketing at Kinso AI and Founders Table. View the original LinkedIn post →