Marketers try their best to be creative when creating an advertising message that will capture the attention of their audience. An advertising message is significant in influencing the sales of a product hence should be evaluated thoroughly to ensure the best results. However, when creating an advert, marketers should fully understand their audience’s expectations and values. As featured in this paper, some adverts have led to the success of a product while others have resulted in failure. When using jokes specifically, marketers should know their audience limits and what may interest them.
First, KFC faced a shortage in chicken, which led to many stores that sold its products being closed. This caused a backlash in their market, losing many of their customers. In response to apologize to their customers, they used the word “fuck” to imply a massive chicken cock-up to fill in the gap. This ad went viral as it was humorous, and the business was fully back in operation. Secondly, Dollar Shave Club is a small company that uses humor as a way of advertising its services through social media. Where the chief executive officer Michael Dubin explained their blades are “fucking great” as compared to other blades like Bic.
Thirdly, Old Spice embodied a hilarious, creative commercial advert on social media advertising men’s soaps. The advertising man is a perfect, attractive, and physically fit man that every woman wants by her side, and he tells the woman to compare his appearance and that of their man (Núñez-Barriopedro et al., 2019). He encourages every man to use a product from Old Spice to be just like him.
Jokes are a form of online advertising where the company can become popular as people share the joke through various social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. Humor catches most customers as they desire advertisements that are humorous since it is to remember the company brand name as well as enjoy using the product that is being advertised. Mostly, jokes work for a specified period as they fade out when they become too common to the public. In conclusion, apparently, many companies fear using humor as a marketing strategy since it may lead to their organization not being taken seriously.
Reference
Núñez-Barriopedro, E., Klusek, K. G., & Tobar-Pesántez, L. (2019). The effectiveness of humor in advertising: Analysis from an international scope. Academy of Strategic Management Journal, 18(4), 1-11.