Why comedy's making a comeback

From TV screens to awards ceremonies, the ‘sadvertising’ trend reigned supreme, and many brands and agencies put worthiness over comedy. 

This year's Cannes Lions was all about the purpose driven campaign: values, mission, ethos and social and environmental causes were the order of the day. All perfectly laudable, just not very fun. In fact, I actually overheard a creative referring to the festival as being like "the hospital". 

Many brands and agencies put worthiness over comedy.

It's no secret that the last 20 years have seen a steady decline in the use of humour in advertising. Data and insights specialists Kantar recently analysed 200,000 global ads and, in 2020, just a third (34%) made any sort of attempt at humour. That's despite the same research showing that humorous ads are more memorable, more distinctive, and that the brands involved are more recommended by consumers.

Above: Over half this year's Film Lion winners at Cannes were comedic, including one of this year's Grand Prix winners. 

But there are welcome signs that the trend is reversing and that the industry is learning to laugh. At this year’s Lions, R.I.P Leon bagged the Film Grand Prix, and over half the Film Lions winners (52%) were intentionally humorous. So, why have we been so slow to get the joke?

There’s nothing like a looming recession for brands to shift focus to short term sales and question the value of humour.

Advertisers are dealing with a gloomy economic climate and shrinking budgets. There’s nothing like a looming recession for brands to shift focus to short term sales and question the value of humour. Sure, it entertains people, but will it actually shift products? 

The simple answer to that is ‘yes’. At DUDE we are happy to confirm that humour (and sex!) sells. When we launched the Break Up With Your Shower Jet film for Love Not War, someone completely unconnected to us uploaded our video on Reddit. It got almost two million organic views and five thousand shares in less than two days. The brand has never sold so much. 

Above: DUDE's funny (and sexy) spot for Love Not War was a big win for the brand. 

Humour doesn’t just make economic sense. In these gloomy times; where there's a horrific war and we all have post-pandemic PTSD, you could argue the ad industry has actually got a responsibility to our audience. We can make people laugh or feel sad in just about 30 seconds. We can generate relief or anguish. For a moment, we can make people either worry or forget about their problems. 

If brands really are looking to make the world a better place, they can do a lot worse than make people laugh.

As Andrew Robertson, President and CEO of BBDO Worldwide, pointed out on a panel in Cannes this year, there is a global rise in unhappiness and, if brands really are looking to make the world a better place, they can do a lot worse than make people laugh while, at the same time, making some money.

While in the awards micro-bubble sad stories and impossible life-saving case studies statistically still beat humour, in the real world, people connect, share and talk about stories that make them feel good. Why else would Joshua Neale's film for CBeebies, Differences, have gone viral on WhatsApp and Instagram, five years after it was first released?