If funny ads are more effective, why are they still becoming less popular?

So, why the gap? That’s what we asked a panel of practitioners and consultants during the ‘Show Me the Funny’ panel at The Drum Live. To get to an answer, let’s take a tour (with the help of some classic funny ads) of the principles of humor, the strategic benefits of funny campaigns and – with the benefit of Paddy Power’s brand strategy chief – what it takes to hold your nerve and push the envelope.

1. Four tenets of comedy, according to Alex Macqueen

Alex Macqueen is head of humor at unique agency-come-coffe-shop Kitchen. He’s also a leading comic actor best known for his roles in The Thick of It and as Neil’s Dad on Channel 4 sitcom The Inbetweeners (as well as more serious fare like Peaky Blinders).

For the brand tipping their toe into the waters of humour, Macqueen shared a crash course in four basic principles of comedy, with some help from a classic spot for Red Rock Cider featuring Leslie Nielsen.

First, conflict. “We often think of drama as the opposite of comedy,” says Macqueen. “But comedy is a subset of drama, and drama and comedy share a crucial feature, which is conflict. In comedy, the conflict comes from the difference between ambition and achievement.” In the Nielsen spot, what’s that ambition-achievement gap? “It’s about people wanting to be competent professionals and their achievement being precisely the opposite”.

Second, surprise. “The best comedy takes you unawares, so that your laughter is a reaction to restoring the equilibrium you’ve lost by being out of control.”

Third, the truth. “One of the best notes I ever received as an actor was, ‘Don’t play the comedy; don’t play the drama; play the truth… That aspect of truth and comedy being serious business.’”

Fourth, respect the edit. Macqueen recalls the case of an excellent film editor brought on to save two film projects in which the comedy wasn’t working and succeeded only by recutting what was already there. If it works in the movies…

2. The strategic power of humor, according to Publicis London’s CCO

With the help of a more recent example of comic advertising from KFC in Thailand (and agency Bananas), Noel Bunting made a case for humor’s widespread strategic benefits.

For one thing, global brands love to be able to tell a consistent story across markets and humor (some of it anyway) crosses borders. “We assume that humor is so local, but actually, it’s really refreshing to see what’s making other people laugh around the world,” Bunting says. And strategically, “using humor is giving the people what they want.” That same Oracle study, for example, found that 91% of people prefer to see humor in the ads that they’re served; 72% would buy from a brand that used humor over one that didn’t.

And yet, 95% of brand leaders are afraid to use humor in their comms. Why? “It’s the concern of not landing – think about doing stand-up comedy. Falling flat is the greatest fear on earth – or having people view your brand in a negative light, or not hitting the mark and offending people.”

3. The importance of relevance, according to The Drum’s humor columnist

Of course, it’s not just about being funny – if these brand benefits could be reaped by any brand dropping any funny campaign, humorous ads would surely be more popular. No – to reap those benefits, funny work also needs to be relevant, says Paddy Gilmore of Humourscope and author of The Drum’s Funny Matters column.

“A core truth in humor advertising is that it has to be related to one of five things: product, proposition, brand name, or audience attitude,” says Gilmore.

One bold trick in the marketer’s arsenal: to use the brand itself (or one of these five elements) in the punchline of the work. Take the ‘Cat’ ad for Ameriquest, a mortgage provider: the brand and what it does is the payoff. “John Hegarty once said that great ads are product demos with a twist,” says Gilmore. “That’s essential to a lot of funny advertising…

4. What it takes to reap the rewards of humor, according to Paddy Power’s Leah Spears

For an organization like Paddy Power, a certain comic tone has become almost inseparable from the brand itself. That comes down, says head of brand strategy Leah Spears, to a laser focus on entertainment across its communications. “We are technically an entertainment brand,” she says. “We rarely talk about any products in [their major TV spots]. We never consider ourselves to be a gambling brand or a betting brand... We go into work every day, and have done for the past 35 years, as an entertainment brand and that has been an incredibly successful strategy. We built our business on humor and entertainment.”

Take the brand’s Danny Dyer-starring Christmas 2024 spot: at once a parody and an embracing of the ‘worthy Christmas ad’ trope. It’s the best performing ad Paddy Power has ever produced, Spears says. Why? “Because the insight was right. A lot of people do get handed a football team by their mum or dad. There’s a truth in it.”

Taking humor this seriously, Spears says, is a full-time job – and not one without risks. “We have built a business on being funny. Everything that we do has to be more funny than the last thing. What is difficult about that is that you’re having to try harder and harder every day to make things more funny and because culture is constantly moving. It can move from one day to the next. The line can suddenly change and you’re sitting with an ad that might fall flat now. So we go to bed thinking about the work. That’s the only way that our teams can get through because we put out, I think, more content than Coronation Street and EastEnders put together. We think about it day in, day out.”