The Nielsen Global Survey of Trust in Advertising polled more than 29,000 Internet respondents in 58 countries to measure consumer sentiment on 19 forms of paid, earned and owned advertising formats.
But when I started writing this post about using humor in marketing campaigns it struck me that it hasn’t been done that often or that well by brands. It is especially true for the B2B brands. So it stands reason that the few companies that have nailed it stand out far above the crowd. What can we learn from their successful blend of comedy and sales?
Cisco
Tim Washer is the creator of Cisco’s ‘The Perfect Gift for Valentine’s Day’ video to promote their $80,000 ASR 9000 router. A carrier class router is definitely not the traditional Valentine’s Day gift for that special person in your life, which is why the humorous and original promotional video made it to the New York Times blog and was widely discussed and shared. It is still being talked about now, four years later, as an example of great marketing humor.
Tim Washer is no stranger to comedy. Being a stand-up comedian himself, a Webby-nominated video producer and corporate humorist, he brings this light touch to his work at Cisco as a social media producer. I asked him about the thinking behind the choice of subject for the router launch video.
‘We wanted to find a fun way to get some attention with our key influencers, analysts, bloggers, and press,” says Washer. “So we thought: wouldn’t it be absurd to position our product as the perfect Valentine’s Day gift for your lover? And that’s what we did.”
Tim knew from the outset that the video was unlikely to lead directly to increased router sales: sometimes the selling cycle is eighteen to twenty-four months for a product like this. Someone’s not going to stumble across a sixty second comedy video and say, “you know what, let’s get a couple of these things.” Instead, he believes in incorporating humor into a wider corporate strategy: “I am a big believer in having a solid global strategy where there’s room for white papers, product information, and demos. But at the same time, if you take a very small part of your budget and say ‘Let’s just entertain people and give our community a gift of laughter without necessarily a call to action,’ others will share your story for you.”
Tim’s philosophy is that humor should elevate a solid marketing message to make it stand out from the crowd and gain a greater exposure. In his experience, a humorous marketing element should still be consistent with the spirit of your brand and the wider themes of your campaigns. “But an occasional humorous video, for example, will help a message stand out among the 100 hours of video content that is uploaded every 60 seconds. A good laugh is a nice gift to give your customers.”
Following the success of the Valentine’s Day router video, Washer has gone on to use his winning formula in further notable campaigns, including a Cisco campaign with a Videoscape (a tool that helps you bring media and entertainment back to the television) launch that they did at CES. For inspiration he and his team thought: “Let’s look at some absurd angle and explore the impact of families spending more time watching entertainment on mobile devices than watching TV… Your television set is probably depressed now. Your television feels lonely because you’re spending more time with your iPhone. So let’s do a video of a support group created for obsolete TVs.”
For Tim Washer, making someone laugh is the most intimate connection we can create in a business environment, and one that he thinks reflects well on a company. “When a brand shows that it doesn’t always take itself too seriously, it’s a powerful way to demonstrate authenticity and confidence, as well as connect with your community.”
Kinaxis
It might be difficult for most people to see the funny side of supply chain management, but Kinaxis has found a way – by comparing the world of B2B solutions to the dating game. Tired of putting up with high-maintenance, old-fashioned and inflexible partners, characters in their series of YouTube sketches discover that Kinaxis is the perfect partner. Cue awkward meetings with exes who realize they just don’t have Kinaxis’ charms.
These clever videos strike just the right note with their lighter approach to B2B.
Epuron
How do you sell… wind? For Eporun, a European clean energy company working with the German Ministry for the Environment, the massive challenge of promoting the potential of wind energy to both investors and the German people was met with impressive wit and style in this short 2-minute commercial.
The wind is personified by ‘Mr. W’, an annoying, black-clad individual who ruins hair, throws sand at the beach, and breaks objects as he passes. Only after a meeting with Eporun does he realize his potential to do good: there is a place for him in the world and he can achieve great things. The promotional film ‘Power of Wind’ won a gold at Cannes in 2007, three gold at the 2007 London International Advertising Awards, a gold at Epica 2007, Grand Prix and Gold at Eurobest, two golds at the International ANDY Awards, gold and silver at the 2008 Clio Awards, and gold at the 2008 Golden Award of Montreux. It has also had over 3.5 million views on YouTube thanks to its humorous and personable approach to clean energy solutions – surely a first for a government-backed information film?
4 tips for successful corporate comedy:
Tim Washer has some words of advice for marketers keen to emulate Cisco’s success with humorous promotional videos:
1) Start with your customer’s pain point. Comedy comes from pain, so it’s a rich area to mine. Focus on a problem that your company can solve. A great place to start is to explore the consequences of that problem not being solved, and exaggerate to the point of the ridiculous.
2) Invent an absurd application for your product, as Cisco did with the ASR 9000 router in the ‘Valentine’s Day’ video.
3) Add a funny sidekick. A simple approach is to have a company expert tell a story and toss in a few humorous responses along the way to help you reach a different audience.
4) Self-deprecating humor is sometimes a powerful way to humanize the brand. When a brand shows that it doesn’t always take itself too seriously, it’s a powerful way to demonstrate authenticity, as well as confidence.
Humor allows us to connect with customers by showing the lighter side of our brands. Humor makes videos stand out from the crowd, but the tone and content have to be appropriate to the brand’s message, or audiences can wind up laughing at you rather than with you. Comedy videos can be used to great effect as part of wider marketing campaigns, especially as social media becomes ever more important to brands.
Originally posted in Forbes