On the Campaign couch… with JB
Q Jason is the creative director of our advertising agency and I’ve suggested that it would be worth trying ‘punny’ headlines. I’ve noticed that their use is widespread in the newspapers and, if we want our ads to blend in so that people are more likely to read them, this would be a good way to go. ‘Crepe expectations’, ‘Morel high ground’ and ‘Lovely Ghibli’ are the examples I showed Jason, but the idea has gone down like a concrete parachute. Could you give me some examples of effective ads that use the punny approach and might convince him?
It’s possible, of course, that Jason is resistant to all creative suggestions from all sources, particularly those from suits and clients. Such creative directors have been known to exist. But, in this instance, my sympathies lie entirely with him. In fact, he’s so right and you’re so wrong that it’s quite difficult to know where to start.
It’s true that sub-editors on newspapers, whose job it is to provide the headlines, are addicted to puns. It’s how they prove to themselves, if not to anyone else, that they possess some specialist skill. But the only people who find puns funny are people who have no sense of humour; and the only people who favour the use of puns in advertising are people who have no understanding of how advertising works.
Those who love puns, and who love sharing their puns with their luckless acquaintances, are delighted when their acquaintances groan because that’s the best reception a pun can hope for. No-one has ever laughed at a pun – and there’s a reason for that.
A good joke makes us laugh because it provides an instant revelation. It leaves a gap that we delightedly complete. We “see the point”: it’s effortless, immediate – and we feel good about ourselves for having seen it. We laugh.
Whereas, a pun, to qualify as a pun, involves ambiguity. It deliberately exploits the multiple meanings of words or similar-sounding words, so putting a brake on comprehension. You have to work at a pun; it’s more like a cryptic-crossword puzzle clue.
It relies for effect on the entirely accidental similarity of prophet and profit, even if that similarity has no entertaining implications.
And when we crack it, it reveals nothing – other than its essential pointlessness. We groan.
The best advertising writing delivers absolute clarity, immediate, single-minded comprehension and an element of reward. The pun stands stubbornly in the path of all of them. Perhaps that’s why I cannot think of a single example of an advertising campaign that has made punnery a central part of its effectiveness.
None of this will be what you hoped to hear, but Jason may find it helpful.
Q I’m a qualitative researcher who has been in the field a few years now and I’ve got a question I don’t feel comfortable asking my boss, who has a large aquarium in his office. Why is it that so many women who recruit respondents for group discussions have fish tanks?
The life of the qualitative researcher is an unenviable one. You have only to travel on an omnibus or spend time in the saloon bar of a public house to know that the opinions of common people are not only mundane but also mind-numbingly expressed. Qualitative researchers are obliged to listen to such opinions, with interested expressions on their faces, five days a week, for years on end. Many find solace in the relative animation of a fish tank.