Creative agency ODV specialises in comedic commercials. The team believes humour has the best cut-through in advertising – here’s why.
The rise, fall and rise again of funny ads
In the early to mid 2000s, comedy was king in advertising. The iconic Old Spice commercial was launched in 2010 and NZ’s very own Ghost Chips ad was released the next year.
What followed was an age of purpose-led advertising. Brands finally put money behind their values and started talking about some very important topics. But as more brands jumped on the bandwagon, it began to feel a little… insincere.
On top of that, humans’ capacity to care is not infinite. With more brands demanding attention for their cause, viewers became fatigued and tuned out the noise.
Ever since the Collins dictionary picked ‘permacrisis’ as its word of the year in 2022, people have been craving relief from the seriousness of the world. And that’s why comedic advertising is in its comeback era.
Humour doesn’t drain the mind, it gives energy. People are naturally receptive to it. Comedy-led ads engage customers where they are: searching for escape as they scroll a social platform whose primary purpose is to entertain. And they’re not just fun to watch…
Why humour gets results
Humour makes us feel good! Humans love a good laugh, so we strategically inject comedy into our videos wherever we can. Humour has the power to turn a relatively mundane concept into something ridiculously engaging.
In 2022, Oracle Fusion Cloud Customer Experience and Gretchen Rubin conducted a fascinating study.
Dubbed ‘The Happiness Report’, it surveyed 12,000 customers and business leaders across 14 countries and revealed an almost unanimous customer preference for brands that are funny.
It found:
- 91% of people prefer brands to be funny.
- 72% would choose a brand that uses humour over the competition.
- Despite this, only 20% of brands report using humour in their advertising.
Playing it safe with your brand might just be robbing your business blind.
How to do it yourself
Humour isn’t easy, otherwise every marketing manager would be doing it. Then again, marketers like a challenge, so what’s behind their reticence?
We asked some, and got responses like: “humour isn’t professional” and “our brand is too serious for humour”.
Sure, a few industries should give comedy a wide berth, but comedy is far more useable in your advertising than you might believe.
Think of comedy like fire. You can have a raging bonfire-amount of humour that, in the right circumstances (outside, away from trees), hits perfectly. But you can also have a small, tasteful, candle-flame amount of humour. Both will make your brand messaging far more memorable.
Remember Ghost Chips? That funny, quotable ad really worked. Not only did the video hit one million views in two weeks, the focus on funny over fear transformed behaviour. The number of under-17s caught drink-driving went from 630 in 2007 to 305 after the campaign was released in 2011. Now that’s what we call impact.
ODV’s Humour Hot Takes:
90% of people are more likely to remember ads that are funny. People want to laugh and brands that know this are succeeding.
Being funny makes you money. 72% of people say they would choose a brand that uses humour over the competition.
Funny and professional aren’t mutually exclusive!
Watch our favourite funny ads at odv.co.nz or give [email protected] a bell if you want to chat video – we’re bursting with creative ideas.
This was first published in our June/July 2024 issue
