Humour your audience to get message across

Good laugh goes a long way to break the ice for a brand

AS A PERSON who’s been in advertising for the past 15 years, working as a creative director for many of them, I’ve always erred towards humour as a vehicle to get a brand’s message across.

When people get home from work, tired and hungry, and turn on the TV, they’re looking for a respite. What resonates the loudest is not the serious content they’ve had to fend off all day, but humour, something that makes them chuckle, feel good about a brand and its message, and forget about their troubles for just a brief moment.

After all, I’m a consumer too, and I always use that as a litmus test when I’m creating an advert.

But there are countless potential pitfalls to consider when we, as advertisers, try to push the boundaries of humour.

We live in a vibrant and robust democracy that’s learning to laugh at itself and its idiosyncrasies, but it’s also a place in a process of healing from the scars left by a brutal and unjust past.

Laughing at ourselves shouldn’t mean laughing at someone else’s expense, and making some people laugh shouldn’t be used as a justification for insult or humiliation of others.

It’s a tricky line to toe. On the one hand, advertisers want to create cutting-edge content that sticks with people, knowing that ads that play it too safe are usually quickly forgotten.

On the other hand, they’re acutely aware (and if not, they should be) of how they could cross the line by being insensitive, well aware that humour doesn’t resonate the same way across genders or races.

Advertisers are vulnerable because we’re putting creative work out there and we have no control over how it is received.

So where does that leave us? I’d argue not in some kind of lukewarm purgatory where we’re scared to step on anyone’s toes, but in the position of careful creators and curators.

When I’m conceptualising an advert, I use my team as a sounding board. Together, we’re diverse and representative enough to have a good understanding of the consequences of what we’re putting out there and how it might be received.

We often try to be funny in the content we create, and – although we sometimes don’t quite hit the mark – I like to think we often are.

As advertisers, I believe we’re able to push the boundaries best when we truly understand our target markets. I don’t want to live in a world where we’re afraid to express our creativity, but I never want to offend through our expression of it.

Brands are more exposed than ever these days, but if you understand the rules, you’re able to push and even break them while remembering delivery is all-important.

The common enemy is assuming things about people’s culture or intelligence, and we should celebrate our diversity instead of entrenching easy and usually harmful stereotypes.

But we’re lucky enough to be in an industry where for each ad that makes a royal mess, there are many more that get it right, and those that The Loeries has recognised over the years really stand as the benchmark for how to push the limits of what good, funny and effective advertising should look like.

The archive of winners stands out as an almost definitive repository of how the industry has pushed the limits without overstepping them.

Cast your minds back to the 1993 BMW “Mercury” ad in which a droplet – of mercury, it would seem – zooms over the alluring curves of a woman’s body in close-up.

It’s a classic example of pushing boundaries of seductive advertising, but in a tasteful way, and the execution doesn’t take away from the idea and the message of how the product is meant to make you feel.

Fast-forward 20 years, and 1st for Women’s 2013 Top Gun ad, in which a pair of male fighter pilots race each other back to base, provides another great example of a campaign that deals with gender stereotypes in an interesting way. By leaning on well-executed humour, the creators manage not to offend anyone, and even endear themselves to both genders.

For an ad that pushes the boundaries of how to poke fun at race in a clever, subtle and funny way, look no further than the 2013 Ford Bantam ad that takes viewers down a well-trodden and uncomfortable path only to completely flip their expectations the next instant.

By playing on preconceived notions of labourer and boss, it touches on something many advertisers would be scared to, and really shows not only our humour as a country, but stands as a shining example for advertisers who want to push the boundaries of what we consider safe or funny to follow.

Think of how Doom’s 2011 Dancing ad, in which a family pretends to tap-dance for a guest while trying to kill a cockroach, celebrates our humour as a nation, highlighting our knack for always seeing the lighter side.

The line, “Some things are worth waiting for”, still takes us straight back to 2007’s Allan Gray ad about a boy with patience; SABC1’s witty, lateral piece of work from 2007, with the tag line “Take another look at Mzansi”, does the same, and its chilling message remains just as relevant today.

I could go on. In addition to my position at Ogilvy, I’m lucky enough to sit on The Loeries committee, which provides me with a holistic view of an ad industry rich with ideas, teeming with potential, packed with humour – and thriving this year. That The Loeries invites entries from other countries in Africa and Middle East only pushes the local industry to be better.

We’re a funny nation and, although we sometimes overstep the mark, we’re learning every day how to use our humour to make more people laugh and fewer people shake their fists in anger. And we’re only getting better at it.

Thulo is creative director at Ogilvy Johannesburg and a Loeries committee member. Loeries Creative Week takes place in Durban from August 5 to 21, with the awards ceremonies on August 20 and 21.