Outdoor advertising has been demonstrated to be an efficient medium for long-term brand growth and brand fame, making it the ideal partner for humorous campaigns.
Consumers often tend to make decisions based on their personal feelings and experiences far more than facts and figures. So, when forming impressions of your brand, their emotional response to your ad will be much more influential than the content of the ad itself.
Build an Emotional Connection with Your Audience
One of the easiest ways to use humour in your advertising campaigns is by tapping into an emotion that your audience has experienced.
Because humour is memorable, if your ad makes someone laugh and gets it right, it can convince your customer that you understand who they are and what they require.
Stand out From the Crowd
It is not only a great way to get a reaction, but it can make your advertising stand out from the crowd.
An element of humour is paramount to delivering a surprising message. A funny brand message immediately catches attention because it is unexpected, making it more memorable.
Catching and retaining the audience’s attention brings higher levels of engagement, shareability and can even make it go ‘viral’.
Become a ‘Friendly’ Brand
Humour is a perfect chance to humanise your brand and increase affinity. Similarly to how people who make you laugh are often those with whom you have a strong connection and bond, brands that connect with their customers through humour form a strong bond with them.
Emotion drives bonding. Thus it’s critical to make sure the natural flow of ’emotion’ via your brand’s touchpoints is clear and consistent, resulting in a well-executed brand strategy.
Humour helps people remember your advertisement because it creates an emotional connection. Making humour an integral part of your brand will make people more likely to remember, notice, recognise, and buy your goods or services.
Have a look at these creative campaigns that have stunned everyone with their genius creations.
Specsavers – “Should’ve gone to Specsavers…” – 2022
The Drum: Should have gone to Specsavers campaign, 2022.
After temporary retirement during the UK’s Covid-19 lockdown, Specsavers has finally brought back the famed ‘Should’ve gone…’ slogan in a new marketing push to reach its biggest audience.
The brand last appeared on UK screens in September 2020 and has been quiet on the marketing front ever since. But, it returned back in the advertising game with a creative campaign that left everyone stunt.
The weird designs of billboards being upside down and allegedly stuck on top of an actual ladder made a viewer look at it multiple times to understand the concept that looks like a mistake at first sight, but it’s all part of Specsavers’ brilliant advertising strategy.
However, the real strength of the campaign was not the joke, but it’s friendly way of pushing people to check their eyesight and hearing while putting a smile on their faces, and key strategic areas that were chosen to attract its target audience.
Paddy Power – ‘We won’t sh*t in your coffee!’ – 2017
Paddy Power Twitter: Paddy Power “We won’t sh*t in your coffee!”, 2017.
Suppose you’re a fan of iced coffee and tend to pick up your morning brew from one of the big three chains.
In that case, you might remember Peddy Power’s campaign back in 2017 that has mocked a popular British street coffee chain, Costa, that has been found to contain bacteria from faeces in their coffee.
Following a BBC investigation, the bookmaker openly mocked the coffee chain, even offering punters a free cup of coffee, by placing funny signage in “conveniently positioned” London stores.
The signs tagline was: “Don’t gamble next door. We won’t sh*t in your coffee.”
“It was obviously pretty sh*tty news to wake up to,” a bookmaker spokesperson said, “but fortunately, our marketing team were full of (coffee) beans this morning and decided to promote our free coffee in shop” (John McCarthy –, ‘Paddy Power releases in-store faeces ad ripping Costa to pieces’, ‘The Drum’, June 28, 2017).
However, you must be careful that you don’t lose sight of the objective. If you are a small company, be very intentional with your campaign. For example, ask your viewers to interact with you online through your social media channels or on your website to capture the audience in some way.
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