Dozens of academic papers show humour makes ads more effective — but how exactly does it work?
When asked, there’s a tendency for marketers to list the ways, almost in a spray-and-pray fashion. One influential book, A Smile in the Mind: Witty Thinking in Graphic Design, notes no fewer than nine ways in which humour works in brand communications.
You ready? Here goes:
It wins time
It invites participation
It gives the pleasure of decoding
It gives a reward
It arouses
It get under the guard
It forms a bond
It goes deeper
It is memorable
These aren’t wrong and, in fact, many of them are very smart. But they’re a little… vague. What I want to focus on here is the super-quick psychological journey that we go on when we encounter a funny ad.
To do this, let’s imagine we’re selling milkshakes for a global fast-food chain.
Standard ad practice works like this: you find an insight into the audience and then marry a product benefit to that insight. So the insight — or, more typically, observation — might go along the lines of:
People drink milkshakes on dates
People drink milkshares after sport
People drink milkshakes as a special treat
Etc., etc.
…Then the product benefit might be:
Our milkshakes come in lots of flavours
Our milkshakes are really smooth
Our milkshakes are really creamy
Etc., etc.
But there’s a problem. We’re creating an ad for a global fast-food chain. People might have a milkshake with a burger, without a burger, on a date, once a year, once a day — whenever.
So it’s tough to find any observation or insight.
But let’s suppose we plough on with our benefits. And we decide to go with, say, creaminess. So our ad might read:
Drink Smith’s Milkshakes!
The Creamiest Milkshakes under the Sun.
The problem with this is that it can all too easily create a counter-argument in someone’s mind. People might think:
“Well, I personally drink Jones’ Milkshakes and they’re creamy enough, thanks.”
Or…
“Creaminess in a milkshake? But cream is fattening and so bad for you, right? Why drink that?”
Or…
“I’m not into milkshakes. And so… creaminess, who cares?”
Or, more typically:
“Another forgettable ad.”
Or, even more typically:
“Yeah, whatevs’.”
What’s happening here is that the potential milkshake drinker is tussling — even if only for milliseconds and even on a barely-conscious level — with the messaging of the ad. The ad is suggesting an argument, and the person encountering it is forming a cognitive counter-argument.
So! Here’s how one global fast-food chain advertise milkshakes.
Funny, huh?
It’s a cow on a trampoline, and that’s pretty much all it is because the sign-off, The Real Milkshake, doesn’t mean a huge amount (Real because it’s natural? Real because it’s not imagined? Real because it arrives in an actual cup?).
So why have McDonald’s done this? A German marketing academic, Martin Eisend, formulated the distraction theory in 2009. This theory suggests that humour “creates a positive effect through a distraction mechanism, distracting the audience from message processing and preventing negative brand associations.”
Of course, we aren’t aware of this. Instead we feel amused and, consequently, feel greater warmth towards the brand. It increases our likelihood of popping into McDonald’s at some point in the future. And many studies have shown how humour increases brand likeability, brand memorability and our likelihood to buy.
What’s more, this ad is both radical and intelligent.
It’s radical because it doesn’t contain any product benefit at all. As I said, real doesn’t really mean a whole lot. It’s just a cow on a trampoline. And that’s enough. (This might not seem that radical, but if you suggest creating an ad without any trangible product benefit, you have a very good chance of putting many marketing people into an icy cold sweat, believe me.)
At the same time, it’s very intelligent because McDonald’s sell stuff that isn’t good for us. They know — and most of us know — that milkshakes are full of sugar, artificial flavourings and many other tasty nasties. So if McDonald’s were to promote “Healthy milkshakes!” we’d think, “Oh yeah, right.” However, by using humour we warm to them and forget about that uglier side of things.
In short: this ad, as well as being humorous, is pretty smart too.
Many thanks for reading.
Moo,
Paddy
www.studiogilmore.com / +44 07866 538 233
GEEKY CORNER:
Many thanks to Prof. Nathalie Spielmann, of NEOMA Business School, who first made me aware of this ad.
Weinberger, Marc; Gulas, Charles & Taylor, Charles: Humor in Advertising, London, Routledge, 2021, p. 29.
McAlhone, Beryl & Stuart, David: A Smile in the Mind: Witty Thinking in Graphic Design, London, Phaidon, 1996.