You may know him as the author of young adult bestsellers The fault of our starsBut John Green’s latest book is a nonfiction defense of his own title:In Everything is tuberculosisHe argues that tuberculosis has shaped everything around us.
For example: When a hatter began coughing up blood in the 1850s, his doctor told him to go west where the dry air would heal him. The hats in the West, writes Green, were “shit” – they were either “insect-infested, rimless coon-skin hats” or “wide-brimmed straw hats that… leaked in the rain.”
So the consumptive hatter – one John B. Stetson – designed the cowboy hat.
When I finished the book, I submitted an interview request to get an answer to my burning question: Could John Green make a connection between them? marketing and tuberculosis?
John Green
author, YouTuber, TB fighters
On brand offers
When Green was invited to explore a possible partnership with Dr. He was, so to speak, overjoyed to discuss Pepper. (He showed up 10 minutes early. To zoom. Dude Really likes Dr. Pepper.)
He had a modest suggestion: that Dr. Pepper was intended to promote humanity’s relationship with the moon. (Pause for impact.)
Green would make videos about humanity’s relationship with the moon, sponsored by Dr. Pepper.
“I always thought it was a funny idea – that you can’t sponsor a celestial body, but you can sponsor that of humanity Relationship with a celestial body.”
He didn’t get a follow-up meeting.
Green gives Dr. Don’t blame Pepper (the missing period isn’t a typo – “it’s a big part of Dr. Pepper’s brand identity, whether they know it or not”). It’s an absurd idea.
But that’s really the point: “I’m not particularly interested in doing a brand deal for the sake of a brand deal. I’m interested in brand offerings that can amplify the absurdity and joy in the world.”
About scaling passion projects
Passion is a powerful fuel. Whether it’s a personal or professional endeavor, passion can give you wings and soar – and it can take you a little too close to the sun.
So I asked Green, who has successfully completed more passion projects than I could have imagined, what his early warning system was. How do you know when growth will destroy what made your project special?
“I think the most important thing is the very first person you hire who isn’t yourself,” he says. “Make sure their values align, that they share your passion, and that they expect the same from the project you want.”
With Crash coursethe educational YouTube channel that Green co-founded with his brother, internet scientist Hank Green, its first employee was “a guy who loves history, like me; who loves online video, like me; who’s really passionate about trying to reach people with educational media. I don’t think it was about marketing effectively. I think.” He was all about making great videos that are undeniable and serve a real purpose in the lives of the people who use them.”
About bottom-up marketing strategies
“In a way, the marketing for Crash Course took care of itself because kids went into high school history class and said to their teacher, ‘Hey, I think you should watch this show.’ It’s really good. It’s called a crash course.”
“It was really kind of a bottom-up approach. The way we marketed it was essentially to market it to the students and then let the teachers discover it through their kids.”
About ROI and shared values
Green admits that he has had great luck in some business ventures that allowed him to take risks – it was a resounding success The fault of our starsHe says that left him and his brother building their YouTube channel Crash Course for two and a half years before they saw a single dime.
That’s an enviable position for any marketer, but its wisdom is budget-agnostic: “I believe in ROI that unfolds over long periods of time, not ROI that can be measured immediately.”
And “sometimes ROI gets in the way. You know, what you really want to have is a core group of delighted customers. And I think sometimes it’s a mistake to market to a target group rather than a core group of delighted customers.”
Take his coffee companyfor example.
“There’s no specific demographic. It’s not like we sell coffee to women between the ages of 24 and 30,” Green says.
Instead, the common denominator is “people who are interested in purchasing coffee in a way that is ethically sourced and where all profits go to charity. That is not a demographic.” It’s more of a mood and values based audience.”
About risky marketing investments
Although he’s best known for his young adult novels and recent nonfiction, Green is also something of a regular co-founder of small businesses – DFTBA, Complexly, and Good Store are just a few.
His business ventures are characterized by a constant joy; Helping small content creators fund and sustain their work, helping aspiring nurses pass their anatomy and physiology exams, and selling ethically grown coffee.
“I like working with brands that empower creators and see the benefit of working with creators, which is that you get a little off the beaten path. That’s what I find most interesting.” This is also the riskiest type of investment you can make as a marketer. And so I understand why a lot of people don’t make it.”
About authenticity and taking risks with your audience
Green has a remarkably engaged audience that follows him on every platform, from YA to YouTube to Instagram great socks. For someone who describes himself as “extremely risk-averse – especially when it comes to taking risks with (my) audience,” he certainly took a lot of risks with his audience.
“It’s not just about following the call of my own inspiration, but also about trusting that the audience will be there one way or another,” he explains. “I mean, if you had told me in 2015 that I would be writing a book about tuberculosis, I would have been very surprised. But that’s where my curiosity has taken me over the last 10 years. And so I just have to honor that and hope that the audience is on board with it.”
Marketers might call it authenticity, but Green prefers “creative honesty.” “Everyone talks about being authentic to yourself, but it’s actually very difficult Be“, he says.
“On the other hand, if you try to be honest about your feeling of inspiration or spark of curiosity, I think it’s a little easier to quantify.”
About marketing and tuberculosis
So back to tuberculosis, the deadliest infectious disease in the world (yes, even in 2025).
Green says a tuberculosis expert once told him that the problem with eradicating the disease is that “tuberculosis has no impact.”
Green’s first reaction was disbelief. “I thought of Course Tuberculosis has a constituency. There are 10 million people who survive it every year and want to live in a world without it. And there are hundreds of millions of people who are infected with it and don’t want to get sick from it. That is apparently a disease with a constituency.”
But what this expert meant, Green thinks, is this Tuberculosis actually has a major marketing problem. “Most people don’t even know that it is the deadliest infectious disease in the world, let alone that it is curable and preventable, and has been since the 1950s. That’s why I think tuberculosis is the ultimate example of a disease that needs a marketing campaign.”
“Malaria,” he says, “was a really good disease in the early 2000s.” No more malaria. ACT UP made HIV/AIDS undeniable starting in the 1980s and 90s. We need a similar marketing campaign around tuberculosis.”
And he adds: “I don’t have to tell marketers that we live in a very fragmented information environment. It’s hard to reach people, especially with difficult messages.”
“So yeah, I think that (marketing and tuberculosis) are very closely linked because I think one of the reasons why a million and a half people die of tuberculosis every year is because of that We are not doing a good job of publicizing the disease in the rich world.”
Your move, marketers.
