Before kicking off…
Recently a few companies have asked me about using humour in pitches. Pitches, of course, are the lifeblood of any business — but how do you use humour to increase the warmth in the room and, therefore, your chances of converting them?
I’ve been developing a number of tools in this area, giving brands more ‘pitch confidence’ and increasing their chances of winning. To find out more, just book a time here.
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If you grow up in any English-speaking country at some point in your education — normally your early teens — you’ll encounter this fella:
Yes, dear Reader: William Shakespeare, the man behind Hamlet, King Lear, The Merchant of Venice and, oh, only 35 other plays, as well as dozens of long poems and his 154 sonnets. In short, he worked his butt off. But in and among his vast oeuvre are six words, in Hamlet, that I often hear in my line of work:
Brevity is the soul of wit.
Is this true? Let’s dig a bit deeper…1
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Admittedly, brevity is crucial in a joke:
How many psychologists does it take to change a lightbulb?
One, but it has to want to change.
And it’s pretty important in a one-liner, such as this gem by the actor Peter O’Toole:
‘Marriage is forever. It’s like cement.’
What’s more, for brands who want to launch a funny ad campaign, brevity seems like brilliant news. They might think, rightly, that a 15-second ad is less expensive than a 30-second one, let alone a 60-second one. I’m no expert at maths, but this is what the equation would look like to the finance team:
“A funny ad + short media time = less $$$”
Nice, right?
…But there’s a but.
This wonderful Dave Allen sketch2 is well worth a watch:
How long does it last? A very lengthy 2 minutes and 49 seconds.
Fine you may say, but that’s a comedy sketch. What about ads?
Well, back in November, I did a little competition (here), asking readers to name their top three funniest ads out of ten good ’uns I had included in my newsletter last year. This was the outright winner:
Its length? One minute 30 seconds.
In fact, of all the ads I included, it was the longest - by far.
Granted, this is a very unscientific experiment, but one of the reasons why so many people admired this ad is because humour can occur in anticipation of humour. The Dave Allen sketch is funny not just in its climax, but in our waiting for that climax.
The science backs this up: ‘even the anticipation of laughing has been shown to decrease cortisol (our ‘stress hormone’) and epinephrine (our ‘fight or flight’ hormone [more commonly called adrenaline]) by 39% and 70% respectively.’3 This is why the ads and sketch above engage us: as these hormones go down, we’re enjoying the wait more and more. Will the man get his £10? Will the bank robbers escape?
Shakespeare didn’t write much about humour science, or indeed ads. I wish he had, to be honest, but he was too busy writing about a dithering Danish prince or two families having a barney in Verona.
But let’s not forget about the humour in anticipation. We laugh not just because we see something funny, but because we expect something funny. Shakespeare wrote no fewer than 14 comedies, so I rather suspect the great man knew this, deep down.
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Brands & Humour is on spring break next week, enjoying a few rays of sunshine — fingers crossed — and will return on 8th April4
Many thanks for reading,
Paddy
pg@studiogilmore.com
+44 7866 538 233
LinkedIn: here
Some readers might take issue with this in that the word ‘wit’ had a different meaning then (a non-humorous one). It was used to mean ‘perceptiveness’ and ‘quick intelligence’. The phrase ‘to have your wits about you’ descends from this meaning. However, it’s frequently used today to apply to humour and the use of humour; in 99% of cases, when I hear it, this is the meaning that is conveyed, so this is the meaning I’m going with.
It was filmed in the mid-1970s. At that time £10 was worth £76 (US$97) in today’s money.
Aaker, Jennifer; Bagdonas, Naomi: Humour, Seriously, Penguin, London, 2020.
Photo © Martin Parr / Magnum Photos, 1983. Reprinted with thanks.