Marketing Monday: Using Humor in Marketing
This week's marketing that caught my eye is a great example of two things.
1. How to use humor in marketing.
2. Knowing your audience.
3. Showing the benefits of your product. (No wedgies!)
Warning – wedgie below.
Obviously my husband didn't not appreciate this marketing as much as I did. But I think I was more their target audience than he is. (Women's underwear — you think?)
What do you think?
- Effective or not?
- Would it make you buy?
- What would you do to make this piece more effective?
- Do you use humor in your marketing? Why or why not?
Talk to me. 🙂
Warmly,
Nicole Dean
Celene Harrelson | The Happypreneur
October 3, 2011 at 8:30 amI love your brand of humor in your marketing Nicole. You let the essence of kooky “you” shine through and you do shine because of it. I gotta loosen up a bit! ;^)
James Artre
October 3, 2011 at 9:05 am“It could drive a wedge between some advertising segments”
“What way to wedge-out the competition!”
“To wedge or not to wedge, that is the question!”
“Wedgertising works!”
“This just wedge’s me out, man.”
“Wedgerific!”
James
Deb Gallardo
October 3, 2011 at 9:13 amWould it make me buy? Not necessarily. Would it get my attention? You bet!
I also love your brand of humor and your mom’s! It’s easy to see where you get your quirky bent. Of course I’m a little bummed that I’m old enough to be your mother. This aging thing is for the birds. LOL
If someone can make me laugh, I am getting to KNOW her, I’m learning to LIKE her and maybe even starting to TRUST her.
So what I’m saying is, I don’t think humor in itself is a sales motivator, but it is definitely a relationship builder, and that means more than making a one-time sale because I got lucky with my cleverness. Just MHO.
Deb
The Mom
October 3, 2011 at 9:07 amYa gotta laugh every day, right Nik? You learned this life lesson well. 😀
Warner’s packaging would make me stop and look, which is the only way to get people to buy. Your “packaging” does exactly the same thing, Nik. You definitely have fun with what you do, and you can tell.
Emma
October 3, 2011 at 10:27 amI love this type of marketing. It must work on me as I usually have a giggle and I always remember it. Virgin Blue in Australia have a similar cheeky marketing strategy (excuse the pun) and I am always waiting to see what they come up with next.
Nicole, thanks for the terrific content you put out there. I am a big fan of yours!
Bob Marconi
October 3, 2011 at 6:09 pmHmmm, not sure about this one – hard to know what they are saying to me… In this day and age we need more humor in every thing we do!
But it doesn’t always work in advertising. Example: the VW commercials where a punch is delivered to someone – not effective. The old “Where’s the Beef” commercials – very effective!
Sharyn Sheldon
October 3, 2011 at 6:33 pmLove it! Glad to see Warner’s is “stepping up” their advertising. They have to compete with people like Spanx, who already have the humor thing down really well. Life is serious enough as it is. We all need to laugh more!
-Sharyn
greg
October 3, 2011 at 9:17 pmHonestly I didn’t really know what product was being advertised! And I’m still not sure. I thought maybe it was some kind of accessory for women’s shoes, or getting women’s shoes on comfortably or something? Because it says “BAD” next to the underwear, so I didn’t think they were selling underwear… oh well, LOL :\
Elise
October 4, 2011 at 4:41 pmThis is an awesome ad. But I am the type of consumer who is attracted to clever, which is often also funny, advertising. I definitely need to use more in my own copywriting, though.
Ted
October 4, 2011 at 7:35 pmIf you are creative enough, you might be able to come up with a graphic that gets the message across at a glance rather than having to get someone to read a sentence or two. I think it is marketing genius when you can do it. People love it. At least I do. And it serves as a mild form of link bait too.
Ed
October 5, 2011 at 5:45 amGreat post, Nicole
I use humor in my marketing all of the time. I have had some success getting it to catch on for behavior modification (which is essentially marketing) in hospitals. Lately though, it has been a rare hospital to officially adopt a humorous marketing campaign, but it has a pretty big grassroots following among nurses & docs – especially for hand washing, reducing catheter-related infections, etc.
Don Gerig Jr.
November 19, 2011 at 6:12 pmOk that was kind of funny… Marketing can get really dry, I certainly appreciate some humor in advertising. I do marketing for my real estate company and I have a bit of a twisted sense of humor. I have to be careful what I think is funny, I always have my entire staff look at my ideas before going to print. Thanks for the laugh.