Why brands need to have humour in their armoury

Brian Carruthers

Humour isn’t used in advertising as much as it used to be a decade or more ago, but the time may be right for brands to seriously consider adding this particular element to their marketing toolkit.

During the dark days of the pandemic, most brands steered clear of humour, deeming it inappropriate for the times. It’s an understandable response when there’s a deadly virus on the loose, but ads sombrely informing the public that the brand is “here for you” go to the opposite extreme – and have a limited shelf life.

Arguably, we need humour now more than ever as a way of lifting people’s mood as COVID vaccines ease a path back towards normality after more than a year of off-on lockdowns and an alarming death toll.

That would also be a reversal of...

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