Humor Is Key For Spreadable Ads

There is a reason everyone gets psyched for the Super Bowl and it's not because of men prancing around in tight spandex or head-diving into each other like neanderthals. Sure some go solely for the view and sport but others, including myself, fall into the fiendish obsession of a single football game just for the chance to experience the ads. Often times companies have to pay big bucks for advertisement during champion games (around $5 million for 30 sec, wow!) and if a company is going to go all out for a few measly seconds, they're gonna need their content to stick to their audience. And most of the time, the most successful way of doing this is making them as hilarious as possible.

According to Jenkins, "humor is not simply a matter of taste: it is a vehicle by which people articulate and validate their relationships with those with whom they share the joke (Jenkins, p.204)". With that mentality, when you get a good laugh out of an ad, it has value. It also becomes memorable and shareable.

Think of your own favorite ad. Did it make you laugh? Clutch at your stomach as you doubled over and barked out that embarrassing thing you call a chuckle? If your answer was yes to the first question, it is most likely the same for the second (maybe not the third, but who knows).

Humor is a powerful tool for marketing a brand, and as learned in Spreadable Media, it is largely part of making content spreadable among its audience. As someone who particularly loves humorous ads, if something makes me laugh and is hilarious enough, I'll surely be sharing it with my friends and family. If I were to answer my own questions asked previously, there is always one commercial that I think of as the epitome of hilarious ads, it would be "Our Blades Are F***ing Great."

The Dollar Shave Club ad uses blunt humor and hilarious visuals that really leave the audience captivated as they stare in disbelief at what they've just watched. The straightforwardness is something that really clicks with the audience and essentially gets the brand it's spreadability as it fluctuates with each new person it comes into contact with. This particular ad is a few years old now but humor is still very much present in the ads we are given today. Another great example of using humor to make an ad memorable is the "Longest Goal Celebration Ever". 

It's a mock of futbol practices as it's common for the players to slide across their knees when they make a GOOOAAALLLL!!! and GEICO somehow connects making a goal as being covered with insurance. It makes no sense but it's funny so it sticks to you as you watch the player glide across the entire field while sliding on his knees. 

No matter how many times I watch it, it makes me laugh and that, is what is key in making an ad that will connect with its audience. Yes, there are other producing strategies such as "shared fantasies, parody and references, unfinished content, mystery, controversy, and rumors", but I think that humor takes first priority as it is something more people can either connect to or shy away from. Really, when you think of the ads that have gone viral throughout time, it's usually those that have humorous aspects that essentially "increase forms of media circulation" as Jenkins describes.