Of course funny B2B ads work. Especially if your product is boring

Or this loudmouth geezer, advertising meaty snacks:

Or the famous Aflac duck if you’re looking for insurance:

… and those are just funny ad campaigns featuring animals.

But B2B? 

Too often, it’s seen as a wasteland of humor. The reasons are oh-so-easy to trot out:

“B2B purchases are inevitably higher in value, so a more rational approach is required.”

“B2B purchases have to go through procurement, so it’s a longer lead time – and the kind of humor used to sell chocolate bars won’t work with the bean-counters.”

“Humor feels frivolous, while business is serious.”

Right?

Wrong, very wrong.

Here are three reasons why humor in B2B is very effective indeed.

1. Sales evidence

How many ads for long-distance lorries feature a truck driving over an engineer’s head? Not many. But it’s what Volvo Trucks did in 2013. 

It wanted to show the incredible ground clearance of the Volvo FMX. The result?

It made its annual sales target six months early. 

What’s more, this ad got the highest commercial effectiveness score of its ‘live test’ series of commercials – far more so than the famous The Epic Split, featuring Jean-Claude Van Damme.

Now, a new truck doesn’t come cheap: you’re looking at upwards of £100,000 for anything half-decent. But Volvo Trucks knows wit works – and it is not the only B2B brand that knows this. Adobe, Squarespace and FedEx are other brands that use humor widely in their B2B marketing. Why? Because it’s intrinsically linked to profits.

2. Academic evidence

Earlier this year, three American academics published a far-reaching study of how and when humor is used in B2B advertising and how effective it is. They had seen great ads like this, with its superb tagline – “Can’t get comfortable at work?” – and wanted to know how they worked.

They reported that, in both B2C and B2B, humor has been shown to enhance attitudes towards the ads and attitudes towards the brands. This leads to greater product consideration and, ultimately, more sales.

But there is a caveat: the humor is less effective when buyers find it unrelated to the product or if they already have a pre-established relationship with the vendor. This would suggest, then, that adding humor on to a long-standing relationship is counter-productive.

However, for top-of-funnel “look at us” attention, humor is ideal. Also, let’s not forget we’re speaking to humans here: “B2B marketing works in a very similar way to B2C. The ingredients for effectiveness – a high share of voice, broad reach, and high mental availability – are the same in both worlds. B2B buyers are people, too.”

3. Boring product? Humor is key.

There’s a third compelling reason for using humor in B2B marketing and, in a way, it’s one that I’d like to deliver in a whisper. It’s this: many B2B products aren’t that interesting. And when a product isn’t very interesting, it needs to humor to at least get a modicum of attention.

I mean, look at the B2B ads above: they’re for trucks and office furniture. Sure, they’re important for people who sell them – and we all need these items – but they aren’t the most glamorous. So humor is needed to turbocharge them. Take this ad for that dullest of tools: a note-counting machine: it’s wonderful.

Or take shipping and courier services. On the face of it, there’s very little that is amusing about transporting packages and documents. But not in the world of FedEx. They tap into a deep truth that the top layer of management – those in fancy suits with letters after their name – don’t have a damn clue what’s going on. So FedEx produces masterpieces like this little gem. 

Humor works astoundingly well in B2B marketing. And the B2B brands who know this treat it like a well-kept secret in their marketing toolbox. It’s good for them, good for their clients and – most of all – good for the bottom line.

Paddy Gilmore is the founder of HumourScope: The Humor Consultancy. Using humor intelligently gives brands a clear business advantage – he helps them find this. He can be found on LinkedIn here.