Shaw & Todd - Advertising and Marketing Communications

How have office politics played a role in your advertising? Have you spent waaaay too much time discussing logo size? Argued over a static vs. animated banner? We’d love to hear about it!

Ok, I’ve gotta correct myself. One of those e*trade talking baby commercials I must admit is pretty amusing. It’s the one where the kid discusses the creepyness of clowns. Ok, now I defy someone to find me a funny commercial with a dancing lizard or a wacky monkey.

“We want something funny. Let’s be funny”. Occasionally we get this from a client. Once we probe into why exactly they have declared that they’d like to inject humor into their advertising, and once we agree that the campaign’s goals and objectives do fit with employing humor to deliver the message, then comes the hard and often agonizing part: delivering something that is actually funny. Now don’t get me wrong— we are a fun bunch here at S&T, but developing a campaign that starts off funny and ends up funny can be a herculean task.

The first hurdle (of many) is creating something that appeals to the humor of everyone who touches the campaign. Not easy. For instance: I’m not a fan of talking babies, dancing lizards, or wacky monkeys. Don’t find them funny in the slightest. But saying that, I can get beyond my distaste for such things if the message is clearly delivered. Case in point: the e*trade talking baby commercial. I get it, online trading is so easy with e*trade, a baby can do it. Yuk. But it does make the point; I’ll give it that. And people do seem to love it. Just not my cup of tea (and yes, I do have a baby, but I still find the concept as unfunny as “Weekend at Bernies“).

So what’s funny to me? Does anyone care? Don’t know, but here’s my first installment. It’s an IKEA commercial, directed by Spike Jonez.