When is humour not so funny?

This past week, Ford Motor Company was the latest victim in the on-going battle of humour versus social acceptance. (click here for related article)

We know humour in advertising is one of the best ways to get attention and retention. Some statistics show that there is a 70% higher recall on advertising built around humour. But humour is also one of the best ways to cross the line with your audience.

Ford's attempt at being amusing "Drive it like its stolen" was created by a team of creative folks who were out of touch with their audience. While the outcry against this ad has been focused on Winnipeg, I would suggest that this campaign would be offensive in most of Canada. There is an understanding that advertising will not promote any criminal activity and this comes very close to that line.

Black Diamond cheese also spent some time sitting on the line between humour and socially acceptable behaviour. In their ad "The cheese is mine, cat!" the rather frightening old woman swats her cat right off the table. Just in case animal rights folks didn't have enough to talk about I suppose. Fortunately for Black Diamond, they changed the ad without a ton of negative publicity around it.

Humour really is a bonus for advertisers when done correctly. See YouTube if you don't believe me. The kind of exposure that clips on YouTube can bring (what we used to call referrals) is invaluable.

There is an old saying "Any publicity is good publicity". Not really true anymore. Folks are much more discriminating than they used to be and if you offend them - well, just kiss their business good-bye.

So how can you know that your humorous ad isn't going to have negative impact? A few easy rules:

1. Try to get someone on the creative team who is the same age bracket as your audience.
2. Make sure the creative team is aware of current events and news stories from your target location.
3. Test the ad with the full spectrum that your audience represents, and finally
4. If you don't find it funny, don't let your creative team talk you into it.

And always remember the death bed speech, "Dying's easy, it's comedy that's hard".