Humour has become a mainstay of advertising campaigns and has proven to be one of the most effective methods ever devised for selling products and creating a positive brand image. In this article we look at the most commonly used techniques in funny commercials and advertising mediums.
The most common humour technique used in advertising is juxtaposition. Juxtaposition involves putting two or more elements together or comparing them to create a humorous analogy. For example, Hewlett Packard ran a clever advertisement featuring a Christmas picture "ruined" by a teenager dressed as a punk. The print ad then showed an image modified using Hewlett Packard's PhotoSmart software with a more idealised teenager. This kind of juxtaposition can be used effectively to create or expose a problem that the product can solve.
The second technique we turn to is personification. This technique involves attributing human characteristics to things without them. The best recent example of this is Evian's Live Young advertisement which personifies babies by making them into active young teenagers. This cleverly adjusts what we might consider a normal situation or activity to create positive associations with vitality and youth.
Thirdly we have exaggeration whereby you extend or stretch the reality of a given situation or characteristic to over emphasise a particular point or point of view. The simple premise is that you make something seem better or have a much greater effect than it does in reality. This allows you to encourage a very positive view of a product whilst making people laugh at the exaggeration itself.
The fourth most common technique we encounter in advertising is the simple pun. One of the most well-known of these is the WKD commercials - which use wicked as a pun for the acronym WKD. This simple technique helps to instil the brand name in to your mind and create certain associations through the humour used.
Fifthly we come to sarcasm. Sarcasm is basically taking something or someone and using their faults against them in a mildly derogatory way. Sarcasm is generally employed to a situation to reveal an interaction between one or more parties and has proven effective at creating humour by espousing situations many of us can relate to in some way - or saying the things that many of us don't ever have the courage to say ourselves in a given situation.
The most common humour technique used in advertising is juxtaposition. Juxtaposition involves putting two or more elements together or comparing them to create a humorous analogy. For example, Hewlett Packard ran a clever advertisement featuring a Christmas picture "ruined" by a teenager dressed as a punk. The print ad then showed an image modified using Hewlett Packard's PhotoSmart software with a more idealised teenager. This kind of juxtaposition can be used effectively to create or expose a problem that the product can solve.
The second technique we turn to is personification. This technique involves attributing human characteristics to things without them. The best recent example of this is Evian's Live Young advertisement which personifies babies by making them into active young teenagers. This cleverly adjusts what we might consider a normal situation or activity to create positive associations with vitality and youth.
Thirdly we have exaggeration whereby you extend or stretch the reality of a given situation or characteristic to over emphasise a particular point or point of view. The simple premise is that you make something seem better or have a much greater effect than it does in reality. This allows you to encourage a very positive view of a product whilst making people laugh at the exaggeration itself.
The fourth most common technique we encounter in advertising is the simple pun. One of the most well-known of these is the WKD commercials - which use wicked as a pun for the acronym WKD. This simple technique helps to instil the brand name in to your mind and create certain associations through the humour used.
Fifthly we come to sarcasm. Sarcasm is basically taking something or someone and using their faults against them in a mildly derogatory way. Sarcasm is generally employed to a situation to reveal an interaction between one or more parties and has proven effective at creating humour by espousing situations many of us can relate to in some way - or saying the things that many of us don't ever have the courage to say ourselves in a given situation.