6 Examples Of Marketing Humor That Create Goodwill

When I say “marketing humor,” what comes to mind?

Probably a funny TV commercial or something you saw on YouTube that made you laugh.

It was an ad, but for a minute there it made you lower your shields and pay attention.

If you own a business, maybe you shy away from “humor,” thinking: “I’m no comedian, I can’t do that stuff.”

If so, you’re thinking of humor too narrowly.

Marketing humor isn’t really about telling jokes or slipping on banana peels. It’s about making people happy– putting them at ease.

Here are six examples.

1. A smile.

Think of LinkedIn profile photos. Who’s making the better impression– the person who’s smiling or the one who isn’t? Smiles make people receptive, even when it’s just a photo.

2. Have you ever been to a minor league baseball game? There’s all sorts of family fun wedged between half-innings.

I went to see a New Hampshire Fisher Cats game a few weeks ago. There’s always a vegetable race with people dressed as vegetables.

(The Carrot defeated The Broccoli and The Steak the night I was there. I guess The Steak must have been plant-based.)

There was also a sumo wrestling match (two guys in inflated body suits). You’ve gotta laugh, and you look forward to your next visit.

3. My old bank is long gone, thanks to a merger, but I’ll always remember walking in once on Halloween. All the tellers were wearing costumes. Free candy, too. You never saw so many smiling customers.

We like doing business with people who make us happy.

4. Here’s an experience I’ll never forget. It took place in Keene, NH, back in the 80’s.

John Sebastian was appearing at Keene’s Colonial Theater along with Livingston Taylor (James Taylor’s younger brother). I went with my wife and my sister Abby. None of us had seen either performer in concert before.

The Colonial’s got a beautiful old-fashioned marquee. When we got to the theater I took out my camera and said, “Let me get a shot of you guys under the marquee.”

A voice behind me said, “How about if I take it? Then all three of you can be in it.” I said, “Gee, that’d be great.” I turned around and did a double-take.

I said, “Aren’t you Livingston Taylor?” He smiled and looked a little embarrassed. “Well, yeah,” he said. He took our picture, then I got somebody to take a shot of all four of us. I became a Liv Taylor fan for life. Good humor at its best.

(Do you think I could find the photos I just described?? They’re among the missing. But I did find these photos of Liv Taylor that I took during his performance that night.)

5. You don’t have to put on a clown suit to be funny, but sometimes the best response is a hazmat suit.

Remember the COVID virus? And all the variants? One of those variants was Omicron. So what do you do if you own a printing company called Omicron Repro?

You order a couple of hazmat suits and pose for pictures outside your store to demonstrate your commitment to customer safety– ha!!

There are times when logic and reason and explanations are useless. You have to bow to the absurd and put it to work for you.

6. I once created a coloring book for National Grange Mutual Insurance Company in Keene, NH. The company’s now part of Main Street America Insurance, headquartered in Florida.

The company sent copies to all its independent agents, along with packs of crayons.

The idea: if someone came in to discuss a policy, and they had small children with them, the agent could produce the coloring book and crayons so the kids would have something to do.

(Note: This was back in the 90’s before every kid had a smart phone!!)

A fun thing that created goodwill for the company and helped keep its brand in circulation.

And that’s what marketing humor is really all about: delighting your customers and creating goodwill for your brand.

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About Mark: I’m an illustrator specializing in humor, branding, social media, and content marketing. My images are different, like your brand needs to be.

You can view my portfolio, and connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Questions? Send me an email.

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