Get ready to laugh, America: According to a USA Today poll enough time has passed since 9/11 that advertising copywriters may step up their use of humor.
If I were a marketer, I’d be quaking in my boots.
This new freedom may come at direct marketing’s expense, especially if copywriters fall so in love with their jokes that they forget what advertising is all about – namely, selling the product or service.
Avoiding humor in advertising isn’t a new idea. In "Ogilvy on Advertising," legendary adman David Ogilvy wrote, "People do not buy from clowns." He later recanted this position, at least as an absolute.
But his initial impulse had some merit. Traditionally, when humor works best, it has been within branding campaigns. Remember the "You don’t have to be Jewish to love Levy’s real Jewish rye" ads? (No relation, incidentally: We don’t spell or pronounce the name alike.) The assumed non-Jews pictured included an Asian man, an Irish cop, and an African American child, each smiling contentedly with mouths – assumedly – filled with Levy’s and luncheon meat.
Similarly, Burma-Vita put up its last Burma Shave roadside signs in 1963, yet consumers still remember the ads. Jingles such as "She kissed her hairbrush/by mistake/she thought it was/her husband Jake/Burma Shave" and "Grandpa’s beard/was stiff and coarse/and that’s what caused/his fifth divorce/Burma Shave" outlasted the product itself. (Don’t fault the advertising: Shaving customs changed.) But in the 30 years Burma-Vita did use the signs, its customer base jumped from 200,000 to 6 million shavers.
These two campaigns had something in common: Each successfully integrated the product into the punch line. This isn’t always the case. A few years ago, EDS ran a television spot during the Super Bowl. It featured ranchers herding stampeding cats. Everyone talked about the image, but not how EDS would make the viewer’s personal or professional life better. I wonder how much product the ad sold.
Likewise, in direct marketing, humor has a tendency to overshadow an ad’s call to action. A punch line will knock out a pitch line in a fair fight. A good place for humor in DM is on an outer envelope, as something that cuts through mail’s clutter and gets the customer to open the envelope. Remember Psychology Today’s "Do you close the bathroom door when no one else is home?" It was the magazine’s control envelope for years.
But the inside of a direct mail package should be reserved for the sell. If the components have humor, the jokes should be geared toward this goal, as opposed to serving as a showcase for the copywriter’s wit.
Make dialing into a call center or sending in a response form part of the humor, and I’ll be convinced humor works in DM. Until then, keep the jokes in the hands of those who throw custard pies on film for a living. Don’t try this at home – or at the agency.
To respond to the opinions in this column, please contact rlevey@primediabusiness.com
