3 Brands That Use Humor To Win At Marketing

by Lily Bradic

​The key to effective social media marketing is entertainment — nobody wants a News Feed full of advertisements, but fun and humor are always welcome. Here are three brands that understand the importance of not taking themselves too seriously online:

J. C. Penney

J. C. Penney’s typo-ridden Super Bowl tweets led many followers to suggest their designated Tweeter was drunk at the keyboard. Big brands like Kia and Snickers tweeted “concerned” replies to the department store, with Ad Age questioning whether they’d been hacked.

But no — they were just #TweetingWithMittens. The stunt, while promoting their Team USA mittens, was the perfect way to draw attention to the brand for free. Why spend millions of dollars on Super Bowl commercials when you can get almost as much attention from pretending to be drunk?

Charmin

When you’re selling toilet paper, you really can’t take yourself too seriously — but you don’t want to rely on toilet humor, either. Kids might love it, but they’re not the ones buying your products.

​Charmin — positioning itself as the “playful side of toilet paper” — manages to be funny without being too vulgar (although the occasional tweet does feel like TMI). Its #TweetFromTheSeat campaign addresses popular, current topics and relates them to toilet paper in some way, as well as asking the important questions about public bathroom etiquette.

Does Charmin take it too far? Almost, but not quite. It’s a risky campaign, as staying in control of a hashtag about using the bathroom is….not easy, to say the least. The responses are pretty much what you’d expect.
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Old Spice

​The best thing about Old Spice is that it doesn’t take itself seriously. Their tongue-in-cheek marketing techniques are designed to make people laugh and get people talking. The products might smell gross, but these guys know their audience. The young men buying their body wash are probably the same ones tweeting Charmin about their bowel movements, which is why Old Spice’s fun, vaguely irresponsible tweets work so well for their fans.

Readers — which fun-loving brands do you follow on social media? Tweet us to let us know! 

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