For brands that are willing to be a little daring, humour can be a powerful way to get noticed. Funny marketing can not only make your content relatable but also help you tackle difficult topics in a creative way.
What’s more, if your startup is challenging the status quo, humour can help you boldly connect with audiences who want a change.
Does humour actually make marketing effective or drive sales? It’s difficult to say.
But what I can say is that some of the biggest startup and e-commerce successes of recent years used humour to stand out. Let’s take a look!
1. Dollar Shave Club’s CEO uses his improv skills to take on a corporate giant
Dollar Shave Club (DSC) is a men’s grooming brand that started with a simple idea: sell high-quality razors at a fair price. Founded in 2011, DSC quickly became known for its direct-to-consumer business model and honest, funny marketing.
DSC doesn’t glamourise the process of shaving as mainstream razor brands do. Instead, it acknowledges it as a chore, using sharp wit and deadpan humour to discuss everyday grooming challenges.
DSC has always gone against the grain with its marketing. When preparing its first major ad campaign back in 2012, DSC wanted to contrast the market leader Gillette, which was known for its sexy ads full of muscley men.
The result was a jokey YouTube ad in which DSC mocked complicated, expensive razors. CEO Michael Dubin, who had eight years of improv experience, became the face of the brand by starring in the video himself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUG9qYTJMsI&embedable=true
The ad positioned DSC as a fun, down-to-earth brand that doesn’t take itself too seriously: the opposite of corporate Gillette with its idealistic vision of men.
The video quickly went viral, and within hours, DSC’s website crashed from the sudden influx of traffic. The ad ultimately kickstarted serious growth for the company, and to date, it has gained over 28 million views.
Humour made DSC likable, and the brand has retained its affable style. The company’s recent “We Got You” campaign is a classic example of how DSC cheerfully tackles real-life grooming challenges.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNVB2XrkjZ8&embedable=true
Unsurprisingly, DSC’s prices have gone up in recent years (it’s more like a “10-dollar shave club” now). But the company still puts out edgy content with its trademark style, retaining the relatable positioning that customers love. Especially on Twitter:
DSC’s YouTube channel continues the down-to-earth humour by covering topics most brands wouldn’t go near:
Michael Dubin, who stepped down as CEO in 2020, was clearly a driving force behind DSC’s down-to-earth humor. As part of DSC’s charitable endeavors, he even live-tweeted his own colonoscopy to raise awareness for colon cancer.
Much of DSC’s staggering success is likely down to the way it pioneered the direct-to-customer business model. But there’s no denying that its funny marketing strategy connected with consumers in a way that most challenger brands dream of.
2. BarkBox hires comedians to carry out a marketing strategy based around entertainment
It’s well-known that dog owners love to spoil their canine chums. Not surprisingly, there are over a dozen well-established companies selling cutesy dog toys and treats.
So, what separates BarkBox from the pack? Besides their subscription-based product offering, it’s their hilarious content, which is often written from a dog’s point of view.
Be it BarkBox’s website or YouTube, their copy resonates with the lives of dog people and their struggles. Their observations are so relatable you can’t keep yourself from saying, “that’s just like me and my dog!”
One of their most viral ads—Dog Mom Rap—has 550k views on YouTube so far.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCITCn7A3Mc&embedable=true
Throughout the song, Barkbox captures the everyday experiences of dogs and their owners with its comical lyrics:
“Casually strollin’ with a turd in my hand,
Wondering where the hell’s the closest trash can?”
As the comments show, dog owners love how true to life the song is. Is this observational comedy style responsible for Barkbox winning over 2.3 million active subscribers so far? Nobody knows—but we do know that nobody else makes promotional videos as fun as this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTe8TF2WO7c&embedable=true
Barkbox has cultivated its fun approach by hiring dog-loving comedians to assist with content creation.
“From the beginning, we’ve operated under the philosophy that for people to be interested in our message or products, our strategy must focus on entertainment overselling,” explains Barkbox Head of Content Stacie Grissom. This strategy is clear in every Barkbox campaign.
Take the NFL Super Bowl, for example. It’s an important day for advertising, where many brands launch iconic Super Bowl ads and converge on social media to poke fun at each other. BarkBox tapped into this with comical tweets written from a dog’s perspective.
Here’s our favorite tweet from the day:
Of course, using humour is sometimes a trial-and-error method. And BarkBox digs this, embracing the reality that it has to take risks sometimes.
“There’s a healthy tension between what your audience reacts to and what you think is funny,” says Katie Kirnan, former supervising producer at BarkBox. “You won’t know your boundaries until you push them, and we want to produce content that we believe in.”
But is all this humour paying off for Barkbox? It’s hard to say—but something’s definitely working for them. The company has gained millions of social media followers and has grown year-on-year since 2011, with revenue forecasted to reach $500m. Success like that is nothing to be sniffed at!
3. Squatty Potty uses a pooping unicorn to sell toilet products
Let’s be honest: we all have less-than-great pooping experiences sometimes. Squatty Potty offers a remedy to this with its toilet stool (pun intended, we guess). By getting the user into optimal pooping position, the stool relieves constipation and makes the entire experience easier.
The company’s story began when its CEO’s mother, Judy Edwards, was dealing with ongoing toilet troubles. Her doctor recommended a little-known solution: poop in a squatting position.
After positioning her feet on some books, Edwards found instant relief from her chronic constipation. Her son, designer Bobby Edwards, saw the business opportunity and immediately began designing a prototype stool.
This family idea would grow into a fully-fledged business with a gross value of more than $1 million in its very first year.
The big push, however, happened when the company partnered with advertising agency Harmon Brothers to create a video. And Squatty Potty did something that no one had ever seen a toilet brand do.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbYWhdLO43Q&embedable=true
How often do you see a unicorn demonstrating a better way to poop? Or dispensing ice cream out of its butt with tongue-in-cheek commentary from a charming prince?
But this bizarreness is what made the ad into a viral video. It enabled Squatty Potty to bump up its sales to $15 million by the end of 2015, just four years after its inception.
“Our first Squatty Potty campaign forged new territory in advertising,” says Bobby Edwards, CEO of Squatty Potty. “We were trying something that had not been done before, and we knew it was a bold risk. That decision paid off, so much so that it’s hard to find anyone who hasn’t seen our ads.”
Using humour when you’re discussing a subject such as health is a risky game. And that’s why the Edwards family and their investors were against the pooping unicorn idea initially. But following its success, they’ve continued their brand of comical-yet-informative content.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPLbyk7c-KM&t=1s&embedable=true
“It’s not OK to talk about poop, but it’s OK to talk about ice cream,” said Bill Edwards, father of Bobby Edwards. That’s why the prince in the ad says, “This is where your ice cream comes from. Unicorns are good at pooping, but you know who sucks at pooping? You do.”
One of the most viral ads in marketing history, the video has garnered a whopping 40 million hits to date. Its success was so stunning that the company reached $19 million in sales by the end of 2016, and the Harmon Brothers won the 2016 Webby Award.
Toilet humour or not, Squatty Potty kickstarted serious growth with its funny marketing. Today, it has more than 270k followers on Facebook and 50k subscribers on YouTube. Talk about making a big splash with content!
4. DeadHappy brings new life to a boring and complex industry
DeadHappy is the UK’s first pay-as-you-go digital life insurance company. It offers a variety of flexible and cheap life insurance policies that it boldly calls “deathwishes.”
Their idea is simple: Encourage people to plan for their death. Without making it too serious.
“Humour is one of the most powerful ways of dealing with difficult topics. We use it deliberately to break into those conversations, and that’s something people get,” said Phil Zeidler, co-founder and CEO of DeadHappy.
Having raised a total of $14.5 million in funding, the company recently launched its new marketing campaign, Please Die Responsibly. It features two comical characters, Mic and Tel, whose fun conversations educate viewers on planning for the inevitable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAW1hWbXN-A&embedable=true
And it’s with these fun characters that DeadHappy started promoting its brand. The first viral video introduces Mic and Tel chit-chatting about life insurance. Its laid-back, fun approach has been so successful that the video has gained 236k views on YouTube so far.
“Our customers and followers have gone nuts for Mick and Tel!” said Phil Zeidler. “They allow us to talk about life and death in a way not seen before—poignant and hopefully very funny.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMFmGROCrdw&embedable=true
DeadHappy’s humour isn’t just in its videos, though. It skillfully continues its fun, conversational copywriting style on its website:
...its social media:
… and even its blog:
Life insurance is a dull topic to discuss. What’s more, the process of getting it is complex, and customers often struggle to find the policies they want.
DeadHappy is trying to change this by offering customers what they want rather than what the industry wants for them. And it does it by making the process of buying life insurance easy and fun.
The company’s light-hearted marketing has been well received, and it saw triple-digit growth in just 12 months after its recent investment. If things keep going this way, DeadHappy will—ironically—have a long life ahead of it.
5. SURREAL uses humour to get noticed in a niche full of bland marketing
SURREAL is a UK cereal startup that offers a healthy, high-protein alternative to sugary cereals. Since its launch in 2022, the company has been causing a stir with its irreverent billboard ads and playful social media campaigns.
Cereal isn’t exactly known as an innovative space—and perhaps that’s why the brand’s creative marketing is getting attention. Check out these billboards where SURREAL takes a playful dig at other leading cereal brands.
(For any international readers, these posters are cheekily referencing Frosties—which is known for its mascot, Tony the Tiger— and Coco pops, two popular UK cereals.)
SURREAL is certainly not the only healthy cereal in the market. However, it’s the first to adopt a playful marketing style that uses humour as a core part of its positioning. And according to its founders, fun was a key ingredient of its marketing strategy from the get-go.
“When we looked at the cereal category, there was a clear divide,” said Co-founder Kit Gammel in an interview with Performance Marketing World.
“So you had fun, really sugar-filled cereals doing really playful, personality-like marketing. And then you had all the healthy cereals, which were incredibly bland. We thought that the only ownable territory was going after that fun, playful moment but doing it with a healthy product.”
Gammel also notes that there was a logistical need to take this disruptive approach. “We’re never gonna have the budget of the big guys,” he explains. “So we obsess over the power of message over the volume of spend.”
Not limiting its marketing to billboards, SURREAL has also built up a solid online presence alongside other brands that are rocking social media with visual content. Bizarrely for a cereal brand, the company has amassed tons of followers on Linkedin thanks to its posts:
What’s more, the company continues pouring on the fun in its interactions with followers. SURREAL’s comments on its posts are golden:
SURREAL has developed its humorous approach by working with Onwards, a London-based brand and design agency. "Onwards’ combination of strategic thinking and creative vision blew us away,” explains SURREAL co-founder Jac Chetland. “They helped us translate our initial idea into a brand with real substance and creative standout, and we couldn’t be happier”.
Will SURREAL’s disruptive approach help it take on the major cereal brands? Only time will tell. But having won the Just Started award in the 2023 Startups 100 list, it’s certainly getting recognition—and a generous helping of laughter from its followers.
Key takeaways on using funny marketing
1. Humour can help you get noticed
Pooping. Death. These are topics that most marketers would approach with caution—which is why it’s so impactful when a brand takes a bolder approach. And even if your business focuses on a “safe” topic, humor can still help you zig where everyone else zags.
2 ..but it isn’t suitable for every company.
Humour involves taking risks, and there are times when it can be inappropriate for the brand. It’s best used when you’re trying to position yourself for a specific audience who you know will appreciate it.
Above all, be aware that humour is polarising, and while it draws some people to your brand, it may push others away. Brands that use humour effectively accept this from the start. “We recognize that we’re not going to be a brand for everyone, and that’s fine,” says Phil Zeidler of DeadHappy.
3. Don’t sacrifice your style just for laughs
Making jokes is a lot of fun, so it’s easy to get carried away. But remember that your messaging should always stay relevant to your brand and its tone. Alexis Nelson, social media manager for BarkBox, explains how important it is to check yourself:
“It’s important to find brand conversations where it would make sense for your brand to interject...So many times when we’re live-tweeting as a team, there are things we want to say as humans who value comedy that we hold back on because we think to ourselves, ‘Why would dogs care about this?’”
4. Be consistent in your humour
The companies that stand out with humour do it tastefully and consistently across their different touchpoints. So whether you believe in outrageous comedy like Squatty Potty or down-to-earth humor like SURREAL, pick your style and own that tone!
5. Don’t assume that humour is responsible for a brand’s success
It’s easy to look at companies like Dollar Shave Club and Squatty Potty and jump to the conclusion that funny marketing is what drove their growth.
But remember, these companies also had great products that were genuinely original or disruptive.
Humour is not by any means a proven money-maker. Like any other marketing tool, it’s effective when it’s part of a carefully calculated advertising strategy - and when it has a great product behind it.
Thanks for reading!
While writing this blog, I found some other companies making bold moves in their marketing. Read about them here: 3 startups with anti-brands that defy convention