Only 13% of Aussie brands use humour: Willow & Blake asks why in The Humour Advantage report
Willow & Blake Lead Copywriter and Strategist Clare Taylor reflects on the humour advantage in branding, and why the creative industry seems too shy to crack a joke, following the release of the agency’s new report The Humour Advantage.
Every nation has its pastime. For Americans, it’s baseball. For the French, it’s making love in fields of brie. For Australians, it’s taking the piss.
Research from Oracle has found that 71% of Australians are more likely to click on an ad if it’s funny, and 77% are more likely to repurchase from a brand if it made them laugh. Why, then, are only 13% of brand leaders in Australia using humour to sell products? How has a nation of grade A piss-takers ended up with a creative industry too shy to make a crack? And why are all our TV shows depressing crime dramas set near creeks?*
There are a few reasons. The first is an endemic lack of personality or chutzpah. Nothing we can do about that, unfortunately.
The second is a fear of “cancellation”. If the joke lands in an unexpected way, or isn’t taken in good faith, it could trigger a wave of online outrage and severely affect a brand’s reputation. You want your joke to land—but not in hot water. Luckily, Oracle’s research also found that Australians were the least likely of all surveyed nationalities to cancel a brand due to being offended (33%).
The third is a belief in “performance marketing” over entertainment-led branding. A false dichotomy to begin with, marketers in this camp believe that short term campaigns pushing price, promotion, and product benefit will always win out against wishy-washy, feely-weely branding. Les Binet and Peter Field’s landmark book The Long and Short of It pokes holes in the divide between ‘emotional’ and ‘performance’ marketing in the first instance. More recently, Tracksuit and Small World’s report Entertain or Die 2.0 outlines how our super-saturated digital has turned the entertainment edge from a nice-to-have to a need-to-have.
At Willow & Blake, punchlines have become our bread and butter. When consumers are consumed with an onslaught of content, humour reliably pierces through the noise. Whether it’s a quippy line on pack, a snort-worthy product name or an unhinged piece of social content, these are the moments that build a relationship that goes beyond cash-for-product. At least, in our experience.
We know our agency’s anecdote isn’t necessarily fact. So we delved into the research on humour in advertising, and pulled apart some famous, recent case studies. What we found surprised us—humour isn’t always the answer, but it has a uniquely powerful impact. And there are some consistent ways it does and doesn’t work. We’ve compiled our insights into a free, downloadable report called The Humour Advantage.
Give it a read. You’ll love the punchline.
*Too difficult a question to tackle in one article.
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