There's No Cannes Lion for the Best Use of Humor in an Ad, But There Should Be
Comedy Included presents "How the Best Brands Use Humor", an in-person event hosted by The Female Quotient at Carolines On Broadway, November 9 at 2:00 p.m. Featuring creative leaders from Liquid Death, Girls Gotta Eat, Barstool Sports, Havas and more. Jack Myers moderates the opening panel and MediaVillage MulticulturalTV host Juan Ayala hosts a comedians' panel at 4:15. You can register here. Comedy Included is a signature event of this week's New York Comedy Festival.
Remember all those mournful, piano soundtrack ads showing empty streets and reassuring us that "we're in this together," at the start of the pandemic? That were all exactly alike? Those (thankfully) went away quickly, and then a funny thing happened…. Some brands actually got funnier. The bravest brands doubled down on humor, with great results.
In 2020, the New York Comedy Festival and The Circus conducted a study on how humor impacts things like empathy, relatability and positive sentiment about a brand. The results were dead serious: ad using humor where 62% more memorable, and positive brand sentiment increased 43%.
As researchers have started to look more closely at humor and its effects, they've discovered that genuine laughter or mirth lights up multiple areas of the brain. As a joke unfolds, the frontal lobe jumps into action to process the information. It serves as a gatekeeper of sorts and determines if we're going to "get" the joke or not.
If the frontal lobe finds something potentially funny, it lets the effects of that humor proceed, and sends out an electrical wave through the cerebral cortex. From there, the rest of our body responds with surprise, delight and laughter. The results can be anything from a mild chuckle to an all-out belly laugh. And that chuckle does more for you than you might realize. According to research by Carl Marci, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and the Director of Social Neuroscience at Massachusetts General Hospital, laughter and humor are, among other things, powerful agents in combat.
The best insurance brands have known this for a long time, and they doubled down in the past year, with hilarious work by creative agencies for GEICO, Progressive, Allstate and State Farm. Ads for Cheetos, Rocket Mortgage, and DoorDash were as laugh out loud funny as any Netflix stand-up special, and water brand newcomer Liquid Death's videos just, well, killed.
While some brands stayed on the side lines too long, debating how to get just the right tonality and pitch, these brave brands went right for the funny bone. And consumers responded. After a decade of FOMO and longing for the perfect lives we see on Instagram, we saw a burst of creativity that we could actually relate to, mirroring our less-than-perfect, work-from-home, remote learning, sweatpants-wearing, comical existence. The brands that got this right and took some risks were the winners, they were with us in spirit and comrades in the struggle.
Article written by Rob Gregory, a veteran media executive, co-founder of influencer marketing agency Whosay, and an advisor to the New York Comedy Festival.
Photo courtesy of Comedy Included.
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The opinions expressed here are the author's views and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillage.com/MyersBizNet.
