To Win the ‘Humour Bowl’, Brands Needed to Score on Multiple Platforms

Image credit: Dave Adamson via Unsplash

There’s been a lot of talk in the industry about the need for humour to make a comeback, and it seems that most marketers tasked with making a Super Bowl ad this year have been listening. 

Last night’s ads confirmed that advertisers were less into more earnest pathos and more into laughs this year, which is great to see. But was this really a return to the ‘HumourBowl’ we all hoped for? And, in the multiplatform world in which we now operate, how many of these campaigns will go the distance?

Among the pregame highlights for me was Paramount+’s  ad with Sir Patrick Stewart et al trying to scale a cliff, in glorious pastiche. That provoked a definite wry smile, as did Kawasaki Mullets – leaning into stereotypes about UTV drivers, owning it and making it fun with the “business in the front, party in the back” angle. Reese’s absurdist, shouty spot also stood out, reminiscent of some of the Old Spice “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” ads at their best.

Elf Cosmetics’ law-themed, star-studded spot was brilliantly incongruous for a Super Bowl, brilliantly on culture for this year’s Taylor Swift Bowl. The brand is also a brilliant social-first marketer that makes great multiplatform content designed to flex for native platform behaviours, so I’m looking forward to seeing how its joke travels. 

Drumstick’s Dr Umstick, Hellman’s Mayo Cat, and Tina Fey’s body doubles for Booking.com all leaned into humour too… but in that sort of achingly self-aware way that actually falls short of being funny. Let’s not talk about Etsy’s lazy racial stereotyping of France’s love of cheese either. An Ooh-la-laugh-free zone. Or Uber One’s questionable decision to launch a “not jingle” with Diddy during the Super Bowl, given his not funny reputational damage of recent months.

Then there was Uber Eats, which got it right with a cheeky teaser leaning into the Beckhams’ viral meme, but then fell flat with the actual spot, which relied on the flimsy idea of having to forget something in order to remember something else.

And that for me is where a lot of this year’s ads fall short. The best, most iconic Super Bowl ads were funny in and beyond the moment, becoming meme-able references in pop-culture overnight, way before the internet made it even easier to do so. 

Budweiser’s “Wassup” is almost unbeatable (unlike this year’s super-earnest old timey ad from the brand). The same goes for Old Spice through to Snickers and Betty White, and even Wendy’s “Where’s the Beef?”. 

It seems like many of this year’s ads were designed for the impact of the spot alone, and that makes me wonder if they’ll really only be funny for the first viewing, but won’t necessarily take that moment (or the spot’s massive price tag) and make it last. 

So, the SuperBowl being one place adland looks for best-in-class work and inspiration that other brands can learn from, what can we learn from this year? 

Firstly, humour is hard at the best of times, let alone during a seeming perma-crisis. Harder when the whole world is watching (and they were this year, given it was the UsherBowl AND SwiftBowl), and even harder when you’ve got to make those jokes last longer… and work in a multi-platform way. 

To really score in the “HumourBowl,” not only did the jokes need to be populist in appeal, but also made super potent by flexing to the way humour plays out in specific platforms. 

And I don’t just mean running cut-downs of the main spot on TikTok, or releasing merch on Instagram (like Hellmans). Beyond Elf, a brand that’s definitely social first and TV second, there are a couple of other brands that seem to be thinking in this way. 

M&Ms ads are usually a lot of fun, and M&Ms has made a “Ring of Comfort”, turning Peanut M&Ms into diamonds to create a losers’ ring, was nicely connected to the product, playing out with a build-up to the game and flexing across platforms… A really fun idea, but not “funny,” as such. 

What was great though was Sir Anthony Hopkins in the ad for Stōk Cold Brew (created by Ryan Reynolds’ Maximum Effort).  We see him dig deep to tap into his acting chops to become… Wrexham’s dragon mascot at a match. The ad ran on regional TV during the big game, but is ultimately (as per Reynolds and McElhenney’s speciality) designed for the internet, and to be shared. It’s a lovely simple bit of humour done well and undoubtedly supported by bespoke content we have yet to see. 

Similarly, Michael Cera’s appearance for CeraVe was funny and smart, well-designed both as a spot on the night and to travel beyond TV. Set up by social teasers, it kept the ink dry on the big reveal for Super Bowl night, with CeraVe’s execs unimpressed by the actor’s claims on their product. 

Dunkin’ meanwhile managed to carry its Grammy’s teaser ad with Ben Affleck over into the Super Bowl. Like the teaser, the ad is designed to work natively across platforms without losing its comedic resonance. For me, one of the very best demonstrations of humour done really well, for the moment and multiplatform alike. 

2024 Super Bowl, then, was a promising start for the return to humour, but was far from an iconic year. For me the learnings include: if you’re going to go for the laughs, know your audience and know you’ve got to think beyond the first laugh and keep them coming. 

A multi-platform audience can be a tough crowd. But like all good jokes, brands can tell them multiple ways, multiple times, as long as they know what their point is, where they’re performing and what the crowd is like. They’re not the same crowd across every platform, so brands shouldn’t be the same comedian across them either.