-Sir Winston Churchill
Marketers are always looking for an edge – something that will grab and hold their customers’ attention, help their brand stand out from the competition and most importantly, drive the customer to purchase.
So how does a marketer break through the clutter of the estimated 3,000+ ad exposures consumers receive every day?
One way is with the strategic use of humor in their messaging. Humor offers a number of advantages. When done well, it:
- aids in gaining and holding consumers’ attention.
- significantly improves brand recall.
- usually gets the message across with less verbiage.
- creates “buzz” (because people readily talk about ads they find funny).
- breaks down message resistance and lowers consumer defenses, creating a better opportunity to build the brand relationship.
Nielsen Consumer Neuroscience research shows that humorous ads score well on the three important dimensions:
- Attention
- Emotional engagement
- Conversion to long-term memory.
According to Nielsen’s latest Global Trust in Advertising Study, when 30,000 consumers were asked which advertising types of messages they most enjoy, humorous ads topped the list for 50% of U.S. consumers.
Neuroscientists refer to the “humor effect,” a finding in memory research that shows amusing information is more easily recalled. They found that humor receives enhanced attention during the information encoding process. Using eye-tracking technology, they found that when participants were shown a variety of ads, humorous content held attention longer than both positive and neutral non-humorous information.
There are some definite cautions that come with using humor, however. Humor should never be so strong that it obscures your marketing message. Remember, the balance between funny and obnoxious can be delicate and subjective. A humorous campaign that “bombs” can untrack your overall marketing efforts. And finally, humor in campaigns can be expensive. Humorous ads generally have a relatively short “shelf life” and need to be updated frequently to keep customers entertained and engaged.
There’s a definite upside to using a neuroscience-based advertising technique like humor for your next campaign. It’s most successful when it both effectively captures your customer’s attention and demonstrates your product’s benefits. A clever, humorous ad will leave your customers with a more favorable opinion and better recall of your brand, which in turn should increase the likelihood that they’ll purchase from you the next time they’re ready to buy.
But be forewarned. As the 18th century actor, Edmund Kean once said, “Death is easy, comedy is hard.”
Do you need help finding your brand’s strategic sense of humor in your messaging? Contact EVP, Brand Strategy, Chris Hayes, at 913-236-2415 or chrish@jschmid.com
Tags: Brand Campaign, branding, Strategy