Humour has been used as a tactical marketing ploy for decades, but what makes cracking jokes so effective? Believe it or not, infusing humour into your content marketing and advertising has the potential to break down customer’s psychological barriers, encourage positive brand associations, build brand awareness, enhance recall and even increase the likelihood of purchasing intent.
When we think of humour and advertising, we can all list a couple of iconic side-splitting ads that have stood the test of time in our subconscious minds. But one of the trickiest things about using humour is that it’s subjective. So what makes that quirky punchline, funny satire or hilarious slogan stand out and get people talking? We delve into the science behind the art of comedic messaging and show how three different brands have hit the sweet spot when it comes to making their audiences laugh.
1. Lower your audiences’ guard
Andrew Tarvin—comedian, humour speaker, and author of Humor that Works: The Missing Skill for Success and Happiness at Work, notes, “A Times article indicated that the average consumer is bombarded with 5,000 messages a day. Humour can help drive attention and breakthrough this clutter. If you get a consumer to laugh, you get them to listen. If you get them to listen, you get them to learn, and ultimately act.” But aside from enhancing brand awareness and attracting audience attention, infusing humour into your marketing campaigns has also been proven to lower people’s marketing defences.
Recent research at BPS Research Digest suggests that humorous advertising has the power to short circuit our brains' built-in “resistance” detector. This “resistance” detector is the name psychologists give to an in-built defence system in our brain that raises an alarm when we think someone is trying to pull a fast one. These conclusions came from Dr Madelijn Strick’s study on 86 Dutch university students, which exposed subjects to 12 foreign peppermint brands.
During the experiment, they were told this research was being conducted in collaboration with a local supermarket manager who was planning to bombard university students with text ads and email campaigns, and that he was even willing to use subliminal messages to make more money. Then, the students were shown the peppermint marketing collateral together with one of four types of accompanying text: funny; positive but unfunny; distracting neutral (simple maths problems), and non-distracting neutral. The results showed that if the advertising wasn't accompanied by humorous text, resistance kicked in and the marketing messages were considered negative. However, when accompanied by distracting text, the brain's resistance radar was thrown off so much that the same advertising messages took on a positive reaction from the audience. Shockingly, the distracting text appeared to directly interfere with the automatic processes that usually underlie our resistance to aggressive marketing.
So, by infusing humour into advertising content, marketers have the potential to successfully draw the brain's attention away from the source of resistance to buy, making us more susceptible to marketing messages. And not many brands have been able to lower audiences’ defences better, or faster than the Dollar Shave Club.
Rising from obscurity back in 2012 after creating an irreverent and comically bold YouTube video, dubbed, “Our Blades Are F***ing Great” the content quickly went viral, receiving millions of views and over 12,000 orders just a mere two days after its release. The positive response was so overwhelming, it resulted in crashing the company website! So how did that single piece of content create that much publicity – through humourous storytelling.
And it’s much more than average blades their selling – their selling their unique brand voice. Dollar Shave Club’s business model, unconventional advertising campaigns, and relentless determination to seek feedback directly from customers created a perfect storm for success. Since then, their first-ever branded video has been viewed nearly 26 million times on YouTube and with the company’s annual revenue quickly rising by millions year after year, the company was purchased by Unilever for US$1billion in 2017.
With their outlandish blend of brash statements and farcical asides, the Dollar Shave Club is producing high-quality storytelling that continues to push the boundaries of satire. Their snappy headlines make you laugh, their slapstick ads make you want to re-watch them, and their relatable CEO makes you want to go out and grab a beer with him. By infusing their brand voice and story with humour, they’ve effectively broken down their audiences’ anti-marketing defences – and you have to admit, their $1 price point doesn’t hurt either.
2. Take audiences behind the scenes of your brand
Infusing marketing messages with humour is one of the best tactics brands use to stand out in an overly saturated market. Not only does it hold audiences’ attention for longer, but your messages also become instantly more memorable, as humour is linked to higher recall. But one of the best ways to infuse humour into your brand is by showing audiences what goes on behind closed doors in a down to earth way, with a healthy dose of fun.
Sean McBride, EVP of Arnold Worldwide and Executive Creative Director of Progressive’s Ads, likens successful humourous commercials and funny marketing collateral to wedding toasts: “Why do all wedding toasts (or at least all halfway decent wedding toasts) always start with jokes? Well, the goal is to try to establish emotion common ground with a room full of people you don’t know, as quickly as possible. More often than not, humour is the best way to do that. To me, advertising is pretty similar.” He continues, “Humour is the most valuable tool we’ve got in advertising. And making someone laugh absolutely constitutes making an emotional connection - I would argue a more natural and more valuable emotional connection.”
Injecting humour into your content marketing mix gives companies a great opportunity to attract new customers and instil loyalty with their existing customer base. And what better way to do that, than showing them how your product is made?
Aviation Gin was founded in 2006 by distiller Christian Krogstad and bartender Ryan Magarian at House Spirits Distillery in Portland, Oregon. It was recently acquired by “Deadpool” actor Ryan Reynolds, who has made it a priority to inject some humour and life into the brand.
“About a year ago, I tried Aviation for the first time. Since that day, I’ve spent my time finding some way to infiltrate the company,” Reynolds confessed around the time of the deal, “I did this for one simple reason: It’s the best damn gin on the planet.”
“Reynolds will now be the face of the brand and be involved in the entire creative process for Aviation, including Aviation’s marketing and strategy,” said Andrew Chrisomalis, CEO of Aviation Gin’s parent company Davos Brands. “This gives the brand huge awareness considering Ryan’s following and fan base,” explains Chrisomalis. “The gin category itself is undergoing a global renaissance, so having Ryan involved with a premiere (and the highest rated!) craft gin like Aviation will introduce new consumers to the brand and category.”
Driven by his curiosity, passion, and relentless entrepreneurial spirit, Reynolds has created a wealth of humourous-led videos, twitter posts, interviews and even a hilariously fake Amazon review that are designed to showcase the fun-loving side of Aviation Gin. But one of our personal favourites has to be a collection of videos that shows how the gin is made.
Their tongue-in-cheek video, narrated by the Deadpool star, highlights the extremely amusing every-day routine of their Aviation Gin distillers and what exactly goes into creating that perfectly crafted gin cocktail. Whether it’s the site of the bearded man misting oranges with Reynolds tears or the clip of the distillers collecting “humanely caught” botanicals before they continue to “beat the living hell out of them”, this advert is bound to crack some smiles, while also encouraging you to become invested with their brand and tune into their next clip, Dedication. And the results speak for themselves. Since making the conscious decision to steer towards humour in their advertising, Aviation Gin’s market share has dramatically increased and as a brand they responsible for at least 30% of the gin category’s growth in the US!
3. Infuse your brand storytelling into the joke
Dr James Barry, a humourist, professor at Nova Southeastern University, and co-author of the research paper “A typological examination of effective humor for content marketing.”, explains, “The difference between an individual making a joke and a brand making a joke is that the individual’s only aim is to entertain,” he said. “A brand has to entertain and connect the joke to their brand image. They’re using laughter to leverage brand familiarity.”
But not only that, the days are long gone when TV commercials and billboards were the only viable form of content. Nowadays, brands need the joke to carry across a multitude of different online and offline platforms, such as Twitter, Facebook, WeChat, YouTube, TikTok, phone kiosk advertisements and more. The joke now needs to be embedded in a campaign that has longevity in order to increase brand awareness, consumer recall and shareability of your message.
Marketing scholars like Thales Teixeira, Rosalind Picard, and Rana el Kaliouby, who used web-based facial tracking studies into the effectiveness of humour in advertising, proved that “Entertainment evoked before the consumer is aware of the brand being advertised … reduces purchase intent. But entertainment evoked after the consumer sees the brand … increases purchase intent. In this case, entertainment has a cooperating effect with persuasion.”
So, this suggests that content marketers have a unique advantage when it comes to projecting branded humour. When done right, the results may have the possibility to change the trajectory of your business. It’s not just about getting a single laugh anymore—it’s about building a story with your audience. You want your customers to get the “inside joke” because they know your brand so well.
We’ve long since been a fan of branded Superbowl Sunday spots, as businesses creatively scramble to one-up each other in the humour department in an effort to set themselves apart and increase brand awareness through spreading the laughter. Collaborating with London Agency, Lucky Generals, Tech giant, Amazon’s creative team D1, blew most spots out of the water in 2018 with a star-laden commercial where their digital assistant, Alexa, comically loses her voice.
Standing in to fill her place and lending a hand in her hour of need is an impressive star-studded cast including, Gordon Ramsay, Cardi B, Rebel Wilson, and Sir Anthony Hopkins – trying, but spectacularly failing, to replicate Alexa’s demeanour and resourcefulness. The commercial ends with the real Amazon Alexa voice returning, set to Carly Simon’s Bond theme, ‘Nobody does it better’. So, while there is no sound reason given for Alexa’s sudden bought of laryngitis, the message is clear, when it comes to answering the world’s questions – nobody does it better than Amazon.
Amazon’s Executive Creative Director, Michael Boychuk, was keen to comment, “We’re always trying to innovate on behalf of our customers and even though I think we’ve proved conclusively that nobody could ever replace Alexa. We hope that viewers have as much fun watching this, as we had making it.” With an online teaser video from Jeff Bezos a week before the big game, amped up social media tweets and Facebook ads building the anticipation, including extended commercial footage after its release, the campaign kept audiences glued to their humourous content for weeks – and the payoff was huge.
From Rebel Wilson’s cringe-worthy take on setting the mood at a dinner party to Sir Anthony Hopkin’s spine-tingling explanation of why Brandon isn’t available, is pure comedy gold – and Amazon customers agree. Shortly after its release, this commercial earned Amazon the number one spot on YouTube’s Top 10 Most Viewed Ads of 2018, with a whopping 50.1 million views. It was the most talked-about Superbowl campaign on Twitter with more than 720K mentions, instantly going viral, which ultimately helped to drive brand awareness and purchase intent. Danny Brooke-Taylor, executive creative director and founder of Lucky Generals commented: “The Super Bowl is advertising’s noisiest day of the year, so it takes a brave client to lose its most iconic voice. Massive props to the entire team at Amazon for their unwavering desire to create something brilliant.”
So, should you incorporate more humour into your marketing campaigns? Absolutely. Injecting humour into your content marketing has the potential to attract the attention of new customers, increase brand awareness, heighten recall of marketing messages, boost shareability and even encourage a rise in purchase intent. But with humour, always remember there’s a fine line between amusing and downright offensive. So, before you hit publish make sure your timing is right, you’ve got the market research to back it up, and most importantly ensure that the jokes you’re pushing out align with your brand values and voice because let’s face it – no one wants to be the butt of the joke.