Please Don’t Clap
Sex Ed sounds like a weird guy.
That sentence was written to make you react to it. Hopefully you laughed. If you didn’t laugh, I’m sorry that you’re humourless. Or maybe there’s another reason you didn’t laugh, like you think Sex Ed sounds like a normal guy, which means you’re weird. Or maybe you’re Sex Ed himself, and you don’t think it’s funny that I’m making fun of your name. But if you did laugh, you’re proving a point that I’m going to make to you: comedy that makes you laugh is better than comedy that doesn’t make you laugh. That sounds like a joke but I’m serious. And not only is comedy that makes you laugh better, importantly for advertising, it’s more effective – as comedy and as a message. This is very important for ads that are trying to be funny. Especially at a time when people could use a laugh more than ever.
Laughter is usually an involuntary reaction. It’s not usually a response. And the difference between a reaction and a response is important. We don’t normally think, I’m going to laugh now, and then laugh at something. In advertising we’re very aware that we want people to react to our ads, but we spend more time thinking about how they’ll respond. What do we want people to do when they see our ad? What’s the call to action? But if our ad doesn’t get a reaction, the response doesn’t matter because it won’t exist. Especially when we’re trying to be funny. Comedy that doesn’t make people laugh isn’t comedy. It’s pandering. And it’s not very memorable or effective at all.
Daniel Kahneman is a research psychologist who won a Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his work on human behaviour. You might be familiar with his book, Thinking Fast & Slow, which won the National Academy of Sciences Best Book award in 2012. I could write about him and his research, but instead let’s hear from a real genius: Norm Macdonald.
In 2009 Norm was interviewed by The Shepherd Express (Est.1982) – Milwaukee’s Alternative News Source (this is an actual newspaper). He was asked about pandering and he said, “So I was getting people to clap, but I reached a point where I never wanted to get people to clap, because it was, like you said, pandering. But there's a difference between a clap and a laugh. A laugh is involuntary, but the crowd is in complete control when they're clapping, they're saying, "we agree with what you're saying-proceed!" But when they're laughing, they're genuinely surprised. And when they're not laughing, they're really surprised. And sometimes I think, in my little head, that that's the best comedy of all.”
Humour is a weapon. Good comedy doesn’t give people a choice whether they like it or not. It’s undeniably, involuntarily likeable. It doesn’t operate on a rational level. Unfortunately for advertising, unlike a stand-up comedian, we don’t have a captive audience, so that part Norm mentioned about, “We agree with what you’re saying; proceed!” – that part doesn’t exist for ads. People can just change the channel, close the browser window, scroll on by, etc. While there are rewards for clapping in comedy, there are none in advertising. And even if there were rewards for clapping in advertising, nobody is sitting at home or on their phone clapping at an ad. Not even my mom, watching an ad that I made. Maybe especially not MY mom.
Too many ads that want to be funny end up settling for claps instead of laughs. And the claps they’re settling for aren’t even real claps. They’re metaphorical claps – the quietest clap. Quieter than even the golf clap. Good comedy requires taking a chance – the chance that someone won’t like it. The chance that your name is Sex Ed and you hate me now. Try to appeal to everyone and you appeal to no one in particular. A great joke is specific. People laugh because they identify with it or because it’s just plain unexpected. That’s why every interaction Larry David has on Curb Your Enthusiasm makes you laugh. It’s also why a Jerry Seinfeld bit about Pop Tarts makes you clap (no offence to Jerry who is an expert in his craft but is almost certainly not reading this).
Whether it’s a headline, caption, social copy, short form video, 15 second or 30 second video, today’s ad formats paired with the right insight are the perfect opportunity for memorable humour. Next time you set out to make a funny ad take a chance like the ads below did and have the courage to give people no choice about how they react to it.
