“Wendy’s Just Roasted Me On Twitter” : 

The Opportunities & Pitfalls of humor for an emerging brand

In the social media era, brands are increasingly turning to humor to stand out and remain relevant for their customer base. Oftentimes, brands fall short, and alienate customers, hurting their brand image in the process. This article will dive into why that happens, and a checklist for you to decide how to use (or not use) humor effectively for your brand.

Every year, when the NFL announces their official schedule, each team promotes their games to their fans, getting them excited for the upcoming season and spurring early ticket sales. Often, this is a static graphic highlighting the dates and opponents of each week’s game. The San Diego*** Los Angeles Chargers went all out, releasing a video featuring Sims-like graphics displaying the upcoming games. Each game teaser featured easter eggs from ragging on the Chiefs’ games being overshadowed by Taylor Swift to making fun of an NFL player who made misogynistic comments. The video was a hit, with over 37 million views on their original Tweet. For a team with a small fanbase that relies on fans of opposing teams to fill out their stadium, this strategy is a winning one: they need a wide breadth of football fans (or lay people) to have positive associations with the team, so if they ever are in Los Angeles, they’ll be more likely to get tickets for the game. 

Contrast this with Diagiorno, who, in 2014, trounced on the trending hashtag “#WhyIStayed”, detailing the real experiences of those who stayed in abusive relationships, with their own tweet: 

 Or look to Duolingo, the language app that has embraced humor-based marketing. Starting off by dropping quips about how the Duolingo owl is always watching and pestering you to use the app, at times the bird went a bit too extreme, making jokes about domestic abuse survivor Amber Heard’s testimony in court, and joking that the green slime from Nickelodeon is the Duolingo owl’s sperm. 

You could point out that the individuals making these “missteps” are generally recent college graduates who do not have the experience necessary to judge what is in good taste and what is not. But that is the exact problem: brands are entrusting individuals with little to no experience to drive their brand voice, but this is the primary impression prospective customers will receive of the brand. 

These marketing and social media staff are not going out on a limb to make these jokes; they are emboldened to do so by their leadership. If the stated goal is virality, and recklessness is a great recipe for accomplishing that goal; but it also increases variability and turbulence, making it as if not more likely brands will turn off prospective users or customers before getting them interested. Virality is fleeting and will not translate to enduring success unless the content reflects a core value of the brand, or alternatively, awareness is all that is needed. The only people who fall into the latter bucket are well-established fast food chains, cigarette companies, and the IRS. So your brand’s content needs to reflect your actual value, attracting those who are likely to align with your brand to your platform or product. 

Using humor as a cudgel to gain brand awareness & get eyes on your product will increase your bounce rate, not your user growth. Unless your explicit brand surrounds humor & breaking tension — for example, a website that breaks down educational topics through humor and memes, or a therapy service focused on “real talk” and “no bullshit” solutions and conversations — could have success utilizing humor to go viral. But even here, recognize that not all types of humor would be aligned with these brands. Neither of these brands would care to make a classless joke. I’ll dive deeper into the issue of attracting a wide audience to your brand in future articles, but the crux here is that, with the exception of Wendy’s, telling your customers to “F*ck off” isn’t a winning marketing strategy. 

But I want to be funny! (You. That’s you saying that.)

That’s fine. Be funny. But if you’re doing it on your brand’s time, rather than your own, ask yourself three questions when considering making a joke, or giving guidelines to any social media or marketing managers you employ. Over time, you can generate “guidelines” for which types of jokes work for your brand versus which do not. To start, it’s worthwhile to consider these steps before any joke you’re going to post for the world to see. 

1. Who are the stakeholders I’m trying to reach?

   1. This is your end, paying-customer. Consider all your stakeholders carefully — e.g. if you’re selling a product for kids, recognize that the parents are the end buyers. If you’re selling a product for businesses, recognize that the executive doing the buying and the employees who use your product or service will need to be supportive.

2. What type of humor am I employing? 

   1. There are 4 primary types of humor styles — affiliative, self-enhancing, self-defeating, and aggressive. 

   2. Affiliative is positive humor that aims to connect with others. Joking about the weather, or Jerry Seinfeld-style observational humor. This is unlikely to alienate anyone, but may be off putting for some customers, especially younger ones, by making you appear cheesy 

   3. Self-Enhancing is humor that makes light of difficult situations — Jon Stewart from the Daily Show often employs this type of humor, as does Monty Python and many political works of satire. It can be effective for individuals, but is less often effective for brands, as it requires a perspective of “Welp! Let’s look on the bright side!” which may be off putting for stakeholders who feel emotional about the problem they are experiencing, or as if you are invalidating their feelings.

   4. Self-defeating is humor that makes light of you or your abilities. This can be effective for individuals in positions of power to make others feel closer to your level. It could be effective for brands that are looking to make certain services appear more approachable — e.g., you could imagine Apple’s “Genius” bar developing a reputation of being a bunch of too-smart employees who judge you for your computer problems, and they unveil a campaign of “Geniuses” saying dumb things. But this is very specific in scope. There is no world where you want to tell your social media manager “go on Twitter and make us look silly / dumb”. 

   5. The aggressive humor style is about taking punches at others. You can punch in any direction, up, down, or across. “Punching up” refers to making fun of someone in a position of power over you, while punching “down” is when you take shots at those with less systemic power than you. Punching “down” is lazy and bad, for comedians in general, but especially for companies. 

      1. Note: Aggressive humor should only be used if you specifically are “punching up” at a group you know your stakeholders will rally against. If you’re a biking organization, criticizing people who are afraid of bike lanes might be effective. If you’re not a biking organization, criticizing people who are afraid of bike lanes just reduces your potential customer base. Sports leagues & fast food chains are examples where organizations are allowed to punch at each other “all in good fun”, but those are rare. 

3. How will stakeholders receive this humor, in the context of my overall brand voice?

   1. Identify what perceptions will be generated by stakeholders through employing this humor in your brand voice. If it will make them more likely to buy and use your product or service, great. If you’re not sure how it will really connect, either ask a professional to really consider your humor strategy (I’m available…), explore frameworks of communication until you really feel confident in how your jokes will be received, or just skip the joke for now. We’ve got enough jokes without my blood pressure monitor trying to make another “Hawk Tuah” meme. 

*** They will always be the San Diego Chargers in my heart <3