What is your marketing campaign missing? As hard as you try, you’re just not connecting with consumers as well as you’d hoped. You’ve tried sharing your brand’s values, and your social media team responds quickly. When consumers have concerns, your customer service team jumps to action. With all of this, you’re still missing your targeted goals. What else can do you?

Use humor in your marketing campaign. Before you say that humor won’t work, look at the statistics.

• 45% of people haven’t felt truly happy since the pandemic started
• 48% of consumers don’t feel a connection with a brand if the brand hasn’t made them laugh or smile
• 72% of consumers admit they move to brands that use humor
• 78% of people admit they would pay a premium to be guaranteed happiness
• 80% of shoppers will make additional purchases from brands that made them smile
• 88% of people seek experiences that evoke laughter and happiness
• 91% of people prefer humorous marketing campaigns from brands

That’s what consumers want. Now, consider this. Five percent of business owners and leaders use humor in their marketing campaigns. If you think about it, that means 95% of the businesses out there aren’t using humor. That makes it easy to outshine your competition.

Statistics Show That Many Brands Miss the Mark

During the pandemic, if you couldn’t go to the office or weren’t able to work during lockdowns and social distancing, what did you do? For some, catching up on movies and TV shows was the norm. But, 89% of people shopped online during the pandemic in hopes of feeling happier.

This is important, as it’s pretty likely that you did some online shopping. Of those that admit that’s how they spent some time, 47% of people reported feeling happy when packages arrived during the pandemic, but only 12% remember what they bought that made them happy. There’s a disconnect between what consumers want and what business leaders are doing to reach potential or returning customers.

• 90% of consumers say they’re more likely to remember ads that made them laugh, and only 18% of ads contain humor.
• 77% of shoppers say they’ll buy items if the salesperson is funny, but only 16% of companies incorporate humor in sales pitches.
• 75% of consumers say they support companies that use humor on social media, but only 15% of social media marketing teams incorporate humor in posts and photos.
• 68% of consumers appreciate chatbots that use humor, but only 27% of businesses use humorous language in their chatbots’ responses.

What do you remember purchasing during the pandemic? Did any of those brands do something humorous that makes you remember them? Those that did impress you, you likely kept purchasing from them. Take a lesson from them and up your game.

Rules for Adding Humor to Your Marketing Campaigns

Adding humor to a marketing campaign, whether it’s on TikTok, YouTube, print, or social media, takes thought and insight. Use these guidelines in order to add humor to your marketing plan without alienating or upsetting others.

1. Don’t Insult Anyone

Humor is subjective. It’s one thing to be humorous, but it’s another to use humor that offends a group or is hurtful. For this reason, as tempting as it might be, avoid some controversial topics like politics and religion. Here’s an example of an ad that was meant to be funny but failed miserably.

Snapchat came up with a marketing campaign using the popular “Would You Rather?” game. Only, the question was “Would you rather slap Rhianna or punch Chris Brown?” The company was bashed for trying to make light of domestic abuse and had to formally apologize.

Don’t make a mistake. Once you’ve drafted your plan, hand it to others to evaluate. Make sure you’ve had different ages, genders, and cultures look at your plan to ensure it’s humorous without being offensive.

2. Get to Know Your Audience

Know your intended audience. If you don’t know who you’re marketing to, your plan isn’t going to work. Before anything else, create personas for your target audience. What are their ages, interests, motivations, and preferences? If your brand sells cookbooks, humor involving cooking, such as the biggest cooking fails, is going to hit the mark better than sports-related humor.

3. Be Competitive

Research your biggest competitors. Aim for competition on a local and national scale. Study their ad campaigns and social media presence and note what you like and didn’t like. Where did they lose you and what left an impression? You want to take that information and build a stronger campaign than they had.

While you’re being competitive, never lose sight of your goals. Why are you incorporating humor? You want to stand out, meaning you need to use humor that outshines anything the competition has done. You’re not trying to poke fun at the competition, you’re aiming to delight and impress your audience.

4. Place Quality Before Quantity

Unless you’re on TikTok, size isn’t essential. You want quality to be your driving factor. Write a script and have others read it over to make sure the jokes or humor works in the scenario. If it doesn’t, go back to the drawing board and try again. Quality matters.

The only exception is TikTok where videos need to be short and to the point. If your TikTok marketing video is too long, you risk losing the viewer’s attention. The average attention span is just under 10 seconds, so you want to get a viewer’s attention span quickly.

5. Make It Sound Natural or Be Obvious You’re Joking

As you add humor to your marketing plan, make sure it sounds natural and not forced. If you are clearly joking and going with the bad puns or dad jokes, make sure your audience knows you’re joking. Best of all, aim your humor at something consumers relate to.

Pringles did this with their “Get Stuck In” ad. You know when there is one chip left in the bottom of the tube, and you reach in and get your hand stuck? In Pringles’ ad, a man goes through his entire life with his hand stuck in the Pringles tube. It’s humorous because people can relate to it.

6. Hire an Experienced Team if You Lack a Marketing Department

Don’t be afraid to admit that humor isn’t your copywriting team’s strength or that you don’t have the manpower available for a new marketing campaign. A smaller business may do better hiring a professional than having the management take on more work.

We know that some business owners are scared of humor as they can’t figure out ways to measure the impact of the humor. It’s easier than you might think with engagement metrics. Our team shows you how to use metrics

It’s time to look at humor in a new light. Experiential marketing can only get you so far. You need to create an experience that’s not going to be forgotten and humor is a way to get attention and draw interest.

Factory 360 is here to help brands connect with consumers using a lighthearted approach. Our marketing experts work with you to develop a plan that promotes your product or service in the way you want, whether it’s adding humor to a visual presentation or creating an interactive pop-up attraction designed to get people laughing.