People like to laugh. No wonder, when you consider how much laughing is tied into both wellness and survival, from laughter yoga classes to the Inuit on their icebergs. With all of this leading to higher scores in the feel-good rankings, a number of marketers have made their move to make mirth part of their marketing mix. Vonazon ran its own gag marketing campaign to coincide with April 1. The subject? Our latest breakthrough in making any trade show booth a success – Robobabe, the trade show robot and the “future of Vonazon staffing”.

 Good Reasons for Serving up Humor with Gag Marketing

A few days and 25 reasonable business leads later, Vonazon’s Robabe humorous campaign was already producing positive results. With a short video that is also posted on YouTube, the campaign also has potential for “viralocity” – viral marketing that gathers speed as people share and link to the video clip. Just like good jokes get shared, so does good marketing humor. The advantage for the marketer is that a relatively modest initial outlay can lead to significantly greater (and relevant) market awareness, because the target customers are helping out by passing the message to each other. Examples of other enterprises using similar gag marketing at around the same time were Metro offering the world’s first edible daily newspaper and Virgin Airlines’ glass-bottomed passenger jets.

What Sort of Laughter Are You After?

Did you also know that humor is also one of the key criteria evaluated by people looking to form a relationship? Don’t worry; we’re not trying to marry you off. However, given the importance of professional relationships in business, it may be useful to get a few pointers about what sort of humor can help (or hinder). For this, there’s no substitute for first of all getting to know your audience and what sort of funny-bone you’re dealing with.

Who Should Run a Gag Marketing Campaign?

Any marketing campaign tool has limits. Competitions and cash prizes may be incompatible with campaigns to attract donations for charities; humor in areas like medical care or nuclear reactors may rapidly become inappropriate. The Robobabe campaign has worked because it uses humor in a way that is unlikely to upset, but with a “gasp” or “gag” factor that still attracts attention (“wow, can a robot really do all that?”). It also uses the April 1 timing to coincide with a period when people expect to be entertained like this.

To find out if it’s right for you, you might try some informal tests that won’t blow up on you if it turns out that you need to switch to a different style. British comedian Frankie Howerd once said that he practiced his comedy routines by reciting his jokes to cows to see if they reacted. However, this may be a little impractical for some.

Contact the marketing experts at Vonazon to discuss further about creative and fun strategies to market your brand.