The Toilet Strategy
Tune every video as if your viewer is watching it on the toilet.
- Difficulty
- Starter
- Time to result
- ~days to results
- Steps
- 3
- Confidence
- 85%
Roughly 80% of men and 69% of women use their phone on the toilet, which is prime downtime scrolling. Okazaki's Toilet Strategy says to design videos for that context: captions on every word because sound is often off or muted in public, and short length because a viewer will not commit twenty minutes there. He backs the rules with eye-tracking data showing viewers check the title, then the eyes, then the play bar to judge length. The corollary is that 'save for later' is a black hole — nobody returns to watch saved videos — so the video has to win now.
Origin
Okazaki built the strategy around a widely-cited statistic about phone use on the toilet and first presented it at a conference, where the audience found it obvious in hindsight but had never designed around it.
Core principles
- 01Design for the actual viewing context, not an idealized one.
- 02Assume the sound is off and captions carry the message.
- 03Respect that downtime attention is short and easily interrupted.
- 04Never rely on 'save for later' — it is a black hole.
How to run it
- 1
Caption every word
Add on-screen captions for the entire video so it works muted, since viewers in public or at work keep sound off.
Pro tip If viewers can neither hear you nor read you, they skip immediately.
- 2
Keep it short
Cap length at about two minutes, and ideally under a minute — nobody wants to spend twenty minutes in the bathroom.
Pro tip Eye-tracking shows the play bar is the third thing viewers check; a long bar makes them defer.
Watch out A great but long video gets 'saved for later' and never watched.
- 3
Win the title or opening statement
Lead with a strong title (or, on title-less platforms, an opening statement) because it is the first thing the viewer evaluates.
Pro tip On thumbnail-driven platforms like YouTube the thumbnail is even more prominent than the video itself.
In the wild
Okazaki ran eye-tracking tests on viewers and found they check the title first, the presenter's eyes second, and — surprisingly — the length of the play bar third. A twenty-minute bar on an otherwise great video pushed viewers to save it rather than watch.
→ Confirmed that video length is a conscious gatekeeping signal, reinforcing the two-minute-max rule.
Common mistakes
Relying on sound
Viewers in bathrooms, offices, and public spaces watch muted; without captions the message is lost the moment they mute.
Trusting 'save for later'
Saved videos are almost never revisited, so a video that is too long to watch now is effectively lost.
Is it for you?
Best for
Marketers making short-form mobile video for social platforms.
Not ideal for
Long-form or audio-first content like podcasts where sustained, seated attention is expected.
From the transcript
“tune your videos as if you're speaking to someone on the toilet”
“nobody ever goes to the safe related video and actually watches them it's it is a black hole where things go in and never come…”
From the episode
Ken Okazaki: 7-Figure Video Funnels, How to Create Compelling Marketing Videos with Just Your Phone
Ken Okazaki