No place for jokes in serious times? Here’s how advertising can get humour right
As advertisers navigate across complex social terrains, fewer wish to engage with jokes in recent years in fear of being cancelled over unsuccessful deliveries. Will the industry eventually grow out of the humorous approach? Darcy Song speaks with Showpony’s Rory Kennett-Lister and Archibald Williams’ Kiranpreet Kaur on how to get it right in serious times.
After a few turbulent years, consumers globally are now looking for happiness in all likely places. While advertising remains a good venue to entertain, research has found the presence of humour in marketing has been on a steady decline.
According to Oracle’s Happiness report – a global study about post-pandemic consumer values – the discrepancy between consumer expectations and finished advertising products is only getting more significant. Although 63% of Australians believe brands can do more to deliver happiness to their customers, business leaders said only 23% of their general ads (TV, billboards) and 20% of their online ads actively use humour.
However, the real problem lies not within businesses’ disfavour of humour, but in their fear of being cancelled over an unsuccessful delivery, the research reported.
