The Purpose of Humour
Is humour + purpose the solution for our times?
Tara Henderson
With Cannes Lions around the corner, the industry has been gossiping about the first time appearance of comedy as a stand-alone category. It feels like a direct response to the purpose marketing backlash that has been rippling through the advertising world over the past few years. Questions like “Does purpose marketing even work?” and “Does every brand even need a purpose?” have been filling trade press columns for a while now. With more cynical consumers and the pressure to ensure every marketing dollar counts, it’s no surprise marketers are looking for answers.
Purpose marketing has had a tough few years. Deemed as lacking authenticity as well as commitment and engagement, no wonder being purposeful isn’t as appealing as it used to be. And Challengers above all know that successful brands stand for something, but standing for something isn’t always about being worthy (looking at you Hellmann’s).
“Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious.” – Peter Ustinov, actor & filmmaker
This growing sense of purpose fatigue stems from a higher societal feeling. We are facing a polycrisis, people are more stressed and anxious than ever, but comedy could be the antidote to that. As Norman Stiles, former Head Writer on Sesame Street told us on our podcast ‘Let’s Make This More Interesting’, “The secret of comedy is to help people see things in a different way.” Purpose driven brands need to disrupt the status quo. They need people to think differently in order to act differently and make the world a better place. A new generation of Challenger brands understand this imperative to drive change and they defy purpose fatigue by communicating through humour. They show the industry that you can have a serious purpose, which you take seriously but still have fun.
Beyond the Advert
But we’re not just talking about funny, laugh out loud adverts here. This isn’t just a nod to make a humorous campaign to nab a Cannes Lion. Whilst the industry is commenting on advertising alone, we’re talking about brands who deploy humour and purpose across every touchpoint. They are the ones breaking through, stealing market share from their competitors and affecting real change.
Better Climate Store’s Greenwash Soap
Sometimes, this is best demonstrated through the product itself. Like Better Climate Store’s aptly and humorously named Greenwash Soap which promises to “wash away the climate guilt with the only greenwash that actually helps the planet.” Better Climate Store’s use of humour shows their empathy and respect for their audience – they too are in on the funny-not-funny joke that is the world of company greenwashing. These kinds of Challengers use humour’s ability to help people form bonds with one another to create an audience for themselves. The benefits for purpose-driven Challenger brands are manifold, as Josiane Boutonnet, Deputy Head of the School of Humanities at University of Wolverhampton, explains, “Humour can help build an identity within a group and establish common ground…humour can be used to challenge the social order too.” This is a Challenger behaviour we see time and time again because it relies on shared understanding of experiences. When humour is used effectively like Better Climate Store, it deepens connections and resonance as well as challenging the status quo.
Better Climate Store’s ‘We fight global warming so you don’t have to’ T-Shirt
Humour might also enable you to bring difficult messages to the table in ways previously avoided. In particular, for those whose category is considered taboo. As Boutonnet goes on to say, “Humour opens up a discursive space within which it becomes possible to speak about matters that would otherwise remain unquestioned or silenced.”
The Gut Stuff, an education and lifestyle brand based in the UK, uses humorous, light-hearted content to teach corporations and the everyday human about their own gut health, debunking myths and breaking taboos. When it comes to all of their content and communications, they aim to “speak to Barry in his flat in Bolton who doesn’t give a fuck about gut health, and then always go back to the scientists and efficacy, otherwise, it could very easily blow up in your face, and become too woo woo.”
The Gut Stuff ’s ‘How do you poo?’ campaign
For example, their original OOH adverts showed balloon animal style pink poos with descriptors like “smooth criminal” and “poonami” and asked passers-by, “How do you poo?” While tongue-in-cheek, the visuals were actually based on the Bristol Stool Chart, a scientific classification for human faeces. When they launched their health food bars, their tagline was ‘Amazing going in…better coming out.’ And more recently, the Gut Stuff’s 2023 Channel 4 TV series, ‘Know Your Sh!t’, was an instant success averaging seven million weekly views. Described by The Guardian as “a cheery odyssey into other people’s poo”, the TV show’s goal was to educate a mass audience and give them strategies to improve their own health in an accessible and fun(ny) way.
Both Challenger brands demonstrate how purpose and humour can coexist and how purpose that leans on humour can be far more engaging than worthy or merely informative communications.
Internalising Humour
The humour and purpose that sit at the heart of a brand should be seen externally but felt internally as well. Tony’s Chocolonely famously takes having fun very seriously. Ensuring this is felt from the start, every new employee joins an onboarding programme called The Chocolate College and their employment contract is the perfect example of a touchpoint that is often forgotten made to be serious and funny at the same time. The document is sprinkled with notes like, “We will take a mugshot of you and put it on a ehh...mug.” Tony’s employees share this part of their onboarding as an example to others, further underlining the point that every touchpoint can be used as a brand asset. A key Challenger behaviour is to project your brand’s POV everywhere. Brands are most effective when they use humour both internally and externally, living and breathing their mission across every moment (not just advertising).
The Power of Funny
For many brands pushing their purpose agenda, humour can be an essential tool for delivery. And there are some hard hitting stats that evidence this. According to data from Oracle: 90% of consumers say they’re more likely to remember a funny ad. And 72% said they would choose a humorous brand over the competition. However, we recognise that the co-existence of purpose and humour may seem like a risky prospect to some brands, and talking about serious issues with levity is certainly not for the faint-hearted, but, the thing is that when it's pulled off correctly, it really works.
Recently for example, System1 Chief Customer Officer Jon Evans mentioned on his podcast 'uncensored CMO' that one of the highest recall ratings for an advert on their system was for Specsavers. The purpose driven brand, which is focused on bringing affordable and quality eyecare to more people, scores so highly, according to Evans, because the advert is funny and amusing. By marrying purpose with comedy, Challengers are able to increase not only the likelihood of being remembered but also of being purchased over a non-funny competitor, as Oracle’s research highlights.
Combining humour and purpose makes potentially bland subjects more engaging, inspires more conversation, breaks down barriers, and demonstrates respect towards your consumers. So, maybe it’s time to put aside your hesitations, combine the two and set out on your brand mission with the comedy mic in hand.