The Bounce Rate Podcast

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Music.

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Welcome to The Bound Train. How are you doing? Why are you looking at me? I don’t know.

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That was a… Do I not look as good as… Well, I guess you don’t know how I

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feel, so do I look good or bad?

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You look great. You both look top-notch.

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Oh, go on. Yeah. No, I mean go on. Okay, you’re a snappy dress. All right.

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Today we’re going to talk about a subject that I think is near and dear to most

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of us here in this table, And it can often be elusive when it comes to marketing.

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And that is the concept of humor and understanding when it’s time to use humor,

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when does it seem genuine, when do you feel like it gets in the way.

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You know, historically, you know, when I was a kid, it was always the concept

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of there being a funny advertisement was a one of the key indicators of marketing working.

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Obviously the main thing that i

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always remember was the super bowl i can remember when you

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know my mom who does she

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does not know anything about football but she would genuinely go sit down and

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watch the super bowl because she knew well one of these commercials will probably

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be super funny and same thing with the oscars same thing with the olympics there’s

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always you know anything would have a lot of eyeballs,

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people know, oh, this is an opportunity to have a humorous ad. But it can be tricky.

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I don’t know. What have y’all’s experience been just as like consumers, as people watching ads?

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I feel like we’ve had a lot more humor brought into advertising in recent years. I don’t know.

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I think lately, yeah. I think too with the internet because not all advertising had to be on TV, right?

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Or the radio and it made it easier.

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I remember, you know, these little small companies that would blow up because

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they would do some humorous ad and it would go viral.

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Right. So one of the ones that sticks out to me is this thing called Squatty

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Potty. Did y’all ever hear of that? Oh yeah.

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And my kids knew the song Squatty Potty, you know, like, cause it was, it was hilarious.

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We had Squatty Potties in my house for like a few months and then for no reason. Yeah.

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But it was just like, I don’t know, like that, I guess it can work,

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but you have to be funny, right? Like you got to do it right. Absolutely.

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And, you know, that also the flip side of that is sometimes someone will make

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an ad with the intention of it being funny and it doesn’t work for you.

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And you might have a negative association of that ad.

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I this is polarizing and I hate to anger them because I sure love them to be a sponsor.

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But I do not like the cow, the Chick-fil-A cows.

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What? I mean, I don’t like, I don’t love them, but I don’t like hate them or

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anything. I don’t get angry when I see them. I do.

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I don’t think it’s going to be for the same reason.

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You should write down your reasons so they don’t change it to mine because mine’s really good.

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But my reason is if you have cows that are smart enough to climb onto billboards

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and write signs, why can’t they spell?

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Sure. Like what? That doesn’t even make sense. That just irritates me.

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You’re not being humorous there. You’re being contradictory. into your own premise.

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This is where, this is my problem is that my humor is not there.

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You’ve actually thought about this way more than I have, but he’s doing world

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building as far as the conceptual universe of the cows.

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They did something right, though. I mean… They have an amazing chicken sandwich

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and they serve it really well. Yeah.

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And it’s reasonably priced. Yeah.

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Yeah, that’s what they did well. So despite, And now they have this brand that is this thing.

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One of the things that I’ve noticed about humor is there seems to be a lot of

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marketing people that feel like you have to have it in.

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And it almost turns into dad jokes or just slight puns, kind of the ha ha ha

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ha sort of ad that I think it really misses. I’m with you.

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With more and more humor in ads there are some where I’m just like,

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this is stupid come on, it’s just too much, you know, or,

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Now, I’ll tell you the ones that I hate more than anything, and then the flip

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side of the ones that I think are a lot of fun.

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The ones I hate more than anything are ads where they say something like,

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are you not using super shine shampoo?

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Well, not using super shine shampoo, that’s like putting a fox in your attic.

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Yeah. That’s like doing this, where it’s a complete non sequitur.

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Right. Yeah. Just something to be outrageous, right? Yeah.

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I have a genuine, and I don’t want to alienate anyone, I have a genuine aversion

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to the Geico commercials.

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Because there’s so many things going on, and so many of them are not having Geico.

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Well, that’s as bad as blank. And I don’t like that non sequitur.

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Partially because it feels like, you know, whenever you’re interacting with

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an ad, it’s a brand talking to you.

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It’s not a person. It’s a company that in our capitalist society is there to

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make a profit and take something from you.

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And if they’re trying to make you forget about that, I feel like they’re trying to trick me.

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I feel like they’re trying to, like, dupe me. But if they embrace that,

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if they say, this is an ad and we want you to buy this thing,

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when they have that premise,

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I personally am a lot more likely to go along with their messaging.

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Well, we’re talking about a lot of these big brands. Can we think about any

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local brands? We’re in Houston, you know, that use humor.

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Yeah. So there’s one of my pizza places. I think we’ve talked about it before here in Houston.

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They were struggling. They struggled on the tape program, and it was bizarre

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that we weren’t as successful for them as we wanted to be.

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We tried revising their ad. We really did a lot of stuff.

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What turned out is that this is kind of a Houston institution,

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and they polled from all across the city. And it’s old clientele.

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Their clientele had been going there for 12, 15 years, and they were having

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a hard time getting new clientele. but they’re very expensive for pizza and

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they’re pulling all across.

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So that, so the advertising campaign didn’t work. So the owner decided,

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Hey, we’re going to try Tik TOK.

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And I saw him a few weeks into it and he’s like, well, that thing’s not what

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I thought it was. It’s just a bunch of stupid videos and all their videos. They were kind of funny.

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They’d be like, Oh, Hey, you know, it’s kind of those ones where they’re like,

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Oh, Hey, I didn’t order fed on my thing.

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And so, you know, the server would grab the fed and throw it into the cook’s face.

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And they did stuff like, you know, just kind of nonsense stuff trying to go viral. Yeah.

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So that’s an example of someone doing some social media,

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funny videos right but that wasn’t incorporated into their brand because i know

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you’re talking about okay yeah like what brand because like is you know when

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you think of it locally it’s fun well i guess what i’m i’m trying to get to

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is this a big brand thing or is can a small business.

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Leverage humor well i mean gold tooth tony’s another

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pizza customer of ours they have some

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i mean it’s it’s not it’s kind of i

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don’t know it’s it’s kind of i want to say humor i think it’s kind of like well they’re

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alternative right because like when you go onto their

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website everybody’s got a lot of ink you know up

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and down the arms and it’s all but it’s also come on

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the name of the brand of the whole chain is gold tooth tony yeah so that is

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a little bit they’re using humor yeah yeah it’s it’s again it’s a very specific

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time of humor and it’s very subtle but it is humor i don’t even i don’t think

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that i think that’s not really subtle but like say gold tooth Tony.

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So, I mean, they’re not hitting you over the head with jokes,

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but it shows a little bit of irreverence and it shows a bit of creativity that

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other brands don’t necessarily have.

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Yeah. Yeah. Good point. One thing, one that pops into my mind,

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they’ve got multiple places, but I just went there last night was a restaurant

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called Tumble 22 that I think it started in Austin and there’s one or two here in Houston,

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but their menu is kind of packed with irreverent names for things and stuff.

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And, you know, it would, or, you know, when you get their emails,

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it has a certain vibe or a tone that is…

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Kind of direct and a little bit in tongue in cheek.

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And, you know, you look at that versus like the sign outside of, of a Luby’s or the,

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or I’m trying to think of it like a, a candle shop or a spice shop that they

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are not going necessarily for the,

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20 to 33 year old.

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They know that they need someone in their sixties and someone in their 60s might

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read this menu and be like, what? What does that even mean?

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There was a menu item called the little OG, which I think is kind of funny,

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the kind of an idea of an OG, but little OG.

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And the question is, does someone in that age group even understand what that means?

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They are going to be triggered comedically with a different frame of reference.

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And so I think it’s important to know your audience before you start saying,

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well, we got to make stuff funny. And does your brand, does your humor match

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your brand? Is it incorporated?

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So if you have a certain amount of irreverence in the brand to begin with,

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the humor is going to be fine.

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If you are just doing a joke just to do a joke and it’s not really part of who you are.

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So there’s a great restaurant here called Sweet Paris.

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They’re about kind of recreating a crepe experience like you’d get in France.

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They can’t really pull off humor. Right. It’s supposed to be a cafe,

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an old world cafe. You can’t really do humor there because it’s not part of who they are.

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Yeah. Now, there’s one area of marketing that kind of blows my mind in terms

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of how bold brands can be despite not having any kind of humor or reverence anywhere else.

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And that is email subject lines.

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I would encourage you to go to your promotions tab and

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look at like some emails because they are a

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lot more aggressive than they used to i feel like back in

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the day email subject lines were just

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things like hey open this now you don’t

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want to miss out these savings and i think like today with

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so much stimulus they have amped it up in

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terms of like amusing subject that’s

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a great point i think email subject lines in advertising

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are like baiting suits of

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clothes you know because baiting suits you can

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wear a wild baiting suit and it’s like totally fine right you

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know like you might have a bright color or crazy pattern but i think that you

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know you’re right that is a place where even if you don’t have a humorous brand

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you’re gonna get probably more opens and reads and attention if you do something

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funny yeah dude doing something out there i’m trying to look for,

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like I’m looking at my spam for some I mean, I think I get old man spam.

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Not younger vibe. You need to go out there and join or you need to go sign up

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for some loyalty and some marketing news. Yeah, evidently.

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But ultimately I think there’s a time for humor.

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You can use humor even if your brand isn’t humorous if you do it in the right way.

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And if you are a small business and you’re funny, I mean, I think leveraging

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humor can be a big win for you, but you got to do it right, right? Yeah.

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Like, because you will stand out more if you do it right. And I think what you

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need to know is you’re not going to be funny to everybody. You have to hit your audience.

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So what are the rules? What are the guidelines, the top three and a half guidelines?

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You’re talking about your spam guidelines? No, for humor. If you’re going to

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use humor in your advertising, what are the… I’ve got two,

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and then y’all follow up the next one.

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Number one, be self-aware.

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If you watched a comedian who went up there and did a stand-up routine about his wild college days,

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but during the whole thing, there was a squirrel sitting on his shoulder,

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and he didn’t mention the squirrel once. Yeah.

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Would you think his stand-up was

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funny? Probably not. Because all you’re thinking about is the squirrel.

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So if you are a brand and you have a certain image and you have a certain understanding

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of what you project, then you need to embrace that.

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You need to be self-aware of what’s going on and who you are.

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And then also just know your audience, which is very similar to being self-aware,

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but know who yourself is and then know who your customers.

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Yeah, I would say that’s got to be at the top of the list. Knowing your audience.

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Yeah. Yeah. I always like the whatever is the subject of your joke,

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that subject should laugh too.

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That’s a good one. That’s a good one. Because that’s a real litmus test.

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You don’t want to punch down.

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It’s too easy. And honestly, it’s just sloppy, easy, lazy comedy to punch.

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Oh, that political party can’t do anything.

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OK, yeah, right. We get it. You’re on one side. They’re on the other. Whatever.

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That’s not funny. If you’re if you look at something and you kind of exaggerate

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what they are, that’s where I think comedy comes in.

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They’re like, yeah, well, I am kind of that way, too. Yeah, I would say I think

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when brands use humor, usually they’re they’re poking at themselves for the

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most part. That’s the thing.

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So the concept of self-deprecating humor, I think it can kind of get convoluted,

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but it’s basically just calling out something that people know about who you are.

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If your brand is like, you know, Hot Topic or Freebirds where it’s kind of edgy

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and you make a joke about being edgy, well,

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that’s, I’m going to feel a

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lot more endeared to you because you are saying, hey, this is what we are.

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Timing. Excellent. I think that’s an amazing third one, which is know when and

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what medium to inject humor.

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I should have held that just a little longer. A little longer.

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I was afraid somebody was going to speak. We’ll have a chance next time.

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When I add it, I’ll put some silence. But I think that’s an excellent final

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one to think about, which is, are you sending a SMS ad at eight o’clock in the morning?

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Well, that’s probably not the time to put humor.

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Is it a… I don’t know.

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Well, I get your point. I think your point is well taken. I’m not sure because

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I will tell you why. And this is probably a generational thing, too.

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I know that humor is actually what everybody wants in the morning,

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because that’s why you never could listen to music on radio stations for years in the morning.

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Drive home is music. The morning is DJs. Yeah, that’s true.

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That’s a good point. For years, I mean, I can’t tell you, because I had to commute a long way to school.

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And I was like, I just want to listen to music. And it was some, we’re riding the dog.

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And they did all the sounds and the noise and so forth. And evidently,

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that was what woke people up.

00:16:25.165 –> 00:16:28.845
Not me. I wanted to listen to Rush. Rula and Roses. Yeah. Oh,

00:16:28.925 –> 00:16:32.625
that is good stuff. You guys need to check out the Rula and Roses show.

00:16:32.865 –> 00:16:34.965
Yeah. Or not the show, but her bit. Yeah. Yeah.

00:16:35.345 –> 00:16:39.185
Well, this week, check out your favorite local brands. See who’s using humor.

00:16:39.385 –> 00:16:42.785
Think about your own brand. How can you inject? Send us samples.

00:16:43.685 –> 00:16:47.465
Make fun of indoor media. Send us samples in the zip, you know.

00:16:47.565 –> 00:16:51.845
Make fun of register tape advertising and cart advertising.

00:16:52.025 –> 00:16:54.785
I want to hear it. I’m going to throw the gauntlet down. Send us.

00:16:54.965 –> 00:16:56.525
Make sure we laugh with you.

00:16:56.905 –> 00:17:00.445
Yeah. Right? Just don’t tell us we’re awful. I get that you’re going to,

00:17:00.605 –> 00:17:02.305
some of you may think that. That’s fine.

00:17:02.625 –> 00:17:07.945
I want to know what would make us laugh. Yeah. we we want to laugh with your

00:17:07.945 –> 00:17:13.105
with you we don’t want to laugh at us yeah yeah right.