Using Humor in Advertising
I don't know how you feel about receiving a load of forwarded emails with jokes from friends, but it is my least favorite piece of electronic communication.
The worst kind are the spiritual messages that "require" you forward to seven, eleven, fourteen of your closest friends so your prayers will be answered in 24 hours.
I feel a tiny sense of guilt as I delete, frequently without reading, the prayerful messages. Many have great ideas or thoughts or references to scripture, but the thought that I'll get my wish, like rubbing a Genie's lamp, by forwarding the message is hard to swallow.
But today I opened the message. It was from a friend that rarely forwards an email message and in her subject line she wrote that it was funny and included a good marketing message.
I'm always up for a unique way to market a product.
Have you seen it? It is a commercial for microwavable Heinz soup.
Well, I'm still laughing.
I strongly believe their target audience is female because I highly doubt men will find the commercial funny.
So it made me think – is it worth it to use humor to market your product and in the process alienate 50% of your target audience? Or were they so sure that their customer was female they were willing to take the risk.
Is that wise marketing?
Click here to see the commercial.
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By Tim King, January 9, 2007 @ 12:23 pm
OK. This ad made me laugh so hard I almost fell off my chair. I guess that means either I’m comfortable in my manhood or I’m really a woman trapped in a man’s body.
But to answer your question, just because some part of the audience won’t find it funny doesn’t mean it’s a bad ad, even if men are part of the target market. (Though it’s arguable that men make up only a tiny fraction of food shoppers.) Just because men don’t connect with the ad as women do, does that mean they’ll avoid the product? Or does it mean they won’t pay attention to the product? It may not send the right brand message to men, but does that mean it sends the wrong one?
In any case, it’s better to connect strongly with a small audience rather than weakly with a broad one. So even if many men are food shoppers, and even if this ad does turn them off, that still doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the wrong ad strategy.
-TimK
By Paul, May 26, 2009 @ 5:08 pm
http://www.drinkthc.com is painfully funny. Is it real?
By Evan, June 3, 2009 @ 12:28 pm
Yeah it’s a real site, pretty great!
By Brandon, April 9, 2010 @ 2:48 am
Hi, I’m an Advertising major at WKU. I would like some people to participate in answering some questions for me relating to the use of humor in advertising.
1.)What types of products are more appropriate for using humor and why?
2.)What ad agency uses humor the most?
3.)What do you consider the funniest commercial/campaign the most and was it effective?
4.)When is it most effective to use humor in advertising?
5.)Can you think of a commercial or campaign that shouldn’t have used humor?
6.)In your opinion, are there any brands that take themselves a little too serious, and could afford to include humor in their advertisements?