Humor is a powerful tool in all media, but especially in branded content, the general manager of CollegeHumor told the crowd at Marketing’s inaugural Marketing Live event late last week.
When executed properly, a funny ad can lead to an increase in brand recall, and encourage viewers to share that content with others.
“Research supports that humour is an awareness trigger; it really helps people recall and remember things,” said Shane Rahmani, general manager and EVP of Electus Digital, which includes CollegeHumor among its brands.
CollegeHumor is the No. 1 comedy brand on YouTube, and comedy is the most watched form of online video, explained Rahmani, adding that it can be a powerful tool for brands as well. “Comedy itself is inherently viral,” he said. “Think about a good joke or a good story; it’s something you want to share, and that is no different with the way people consume video content online.”
The same is true for advertisers creating branded and sponsored content, added Rahmani, who works with a number of global brands to develop video campaigns.
“If advertising is entertaining, it makes it great,” he said. “We talk about visually dynamic on the comedy side, and visually iconic on the advertising side, and all of that plays to this idea of driving great recall, great resonance and a clear call to action.”
Making great comedic content, however, is much harder in practice, as jokes made in poor taste or ones that simply don’t land can have a negative impact on a brand. There are a few key principals to keep in mind when building branded content that is truly funny, according to Rahmani.
“First things first; relatable. Strike an emotional nerve, really connect with what people are thinking. Obviously being smart helps in that way,” he said, adding that speed and surprise are also important attributes of funny content. “Speed works particularly well in digital, because people aren’t leaning back, they’re there for snack-able, for quick, and surprise is the foundation of all things humour.”
But creating humourous content is just the beginning, explained Rahmani, who believes the way in which the content is presented will ultimately determine its success.
“Packaging is so critically import,” he said. “What does that mean specifically? Title, thumbnails, the way content looks and feels, platform agnostic, platform aware, across all the modes of distribution.”
When assessing a piece of content’s likelihood of going viral, Rahmani says that the CollegeHumor staff rate it based on their own three-point scale.
“The idea of ‘client good’ for us is not what we really strive for,” he said. “Client good is you get the RFP, there’s a couple of checkboxes that we swipe through, but the content just makes the client happy, we get paid and move on.”
The next tier is ‘passively good,’ which Rahmani described as “good enough to be published” but not good enough to inspire audiences to share the content amongst their network.
“Our goal is ‘shareable good’ — this idea that the instant you see the content the first thing you think of is ‘who can I share this with?’” said Rahmani, adding that ‘shareable good’ is defined as content that aligns with brand objectives, speaks to the CollegeHumour audience and distributes it in a way that makes it easy to share with others.
“The way we consume content digitally has completely changed,” he said. “We believe we’re in the platform age, and creating content that is shareable good is critical in succeeding in the platform age.”
Rahmani added that brands who struggle to create content that is shareable should partner with publishers who can help them create and distribute that content. “That’s not just a pitch for CollegeHumor, but they can really help brands break thorugh,” he added.
