What Makes a Funny Ad, Funny?

Todays post reflects on what makes a funny advertisement, funny?

From the man behind those amazing HBO Go ads and “Swear Jar”, research conducted by Jeff Beer explains what makes an advertisement hilarious. Now, you could ask anyone what makes advertisements funny and you’d get very different responses. This is because comedy, in one-way or another, speaks to everyone differently, thus when creating an advertisement, one needs to consider what is funny to the target market. In under a minute or less you need to make your audience laugh while conveying information about the product. Jeff Beer complied a list of what he found to make advertisements funny when creating his popular advertisements. 

Here is a list summarizing Beer’s tips for being funny in your advertisement.

·      Let a joke live its natural life.  Essentially, don't drag out something that was only funny for 5 seconds; unless you want to kill the joke!

·      Find room to improvise. Try to create the opportunity for the actors to live in the moment.

·      Go behind the eyes. Look for actors for the advertisement that have more going on upstairs in the mental department. Beer suggests looking for inside-out actors that can do a lot with a little.

·      Look for specific moments. Look for daily opportunities where comedy naturally occurs because people laugh when they recognize themselves in what they are watching.

·      Always go faster. Speed allows you to find those natural, vulnerable moments.

Beer’s list is particularly useful for marketers creating TV commercial advertisements. While the tips are more related to the director side, anyone with a smartphone can create an advertisement and upload it to YouTube for the world to see, thus this is virtually useful for all marketers. If comedy is the means you’d like your content to be presented by, then follow Beer’s and let me know how it goes in the comment section!! Id love to hear if his tips are useful or not for you!

Special thanks to my readers for the recent love on my blog: Thank you to David, Richard, Grace and the rest of my readers for your advice and support.