Advertisers Fear Hilarious Ads That ‘Eat’ Products

Most people know about the ad where Ivano Balić silently stares at a new car model, but not everyone remembers which model the handball player was gazing at. The problem with clever and humorous ads is that the expression should not kill the advertising message.

written by Jelena Gotovac
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Today, it is a hundred times easier to make an ad than before, but likewise, the public’s reaction to its interesting or tasteless content is a million times faster than it used to be, primarily thanks to diligent bloggers and forum users who love to discuss a marketing endeavor they have seen, heard, or read about for days.
However, what is common between past and present times is that an ad must be interesting, memorable, and appealing. Over the years, marketing trends have changed, and for some time now, sex as a leitmotif in short ads has been out of fashion, with violence and humor increasingly taking its place. However, it is far from the case that sexual allusions will ever be completely eradicated. Certainly, shocking scenes aimed at shocking the public sometimes provoke disgust from that same public, so from an ad about toothpaste, only the vomiting of blood and tooth loss is remembered, while few remember which toothpaste it was about. Everyone more or less knows about the ad where Ivano Balić silently stares at a new car model, but not everyone remembers which model our handball player was staring at, nor the brand of that car. Therefore, the eternal problem of clever and humorous ads is that the expression should not kill the advertising message.
– The biggest challenge is that the ad does not ‘eat’ the product while being good and humorous.

Lukewarm Ads
Humor is becoming more prevalent; however, like sex, it is becoming more ‘washed’, so there is not as much provocative humor, but rather the most common type that will satisfy and not offend, for example, the kindergarten aunt – says Peđa Bajović, owner and director of the Zagreb production company Aetas, and also a stand-up comedian. 

Peđa Bajović: director of the production company Aetas: – Today, any ad filmed in the world among creatives is not retold because we can go to YouTube and immediately see what it is about.

Provocative humor is most prevalent in larger markets, where the internet is the most common form of daily communication, as there it does not have to draw attention to decency and the possible offense of part of the public.  – In online communication, it is assumed that one goes for content, not that it is served to us without us having asked for it at all. Unfortunately, we are still below average in terms of internetization, and television is still the strongest medium here, so great care is taken – emphasizes Bajović.

This well-known stand-up comedian points out that the worst radio ads in our creative achievements are especially those dialogical ones where the interlocutors address each other with drawn-out ‘dear’ and ‘darling’ in sultry voices. Once, Split comedians Rade Medan and Željko Maretić Žele, known for the radio show ‘Trta-mrta’, were the main humorous tandem whose ads brought to life every product they represented so vividly that every listener could easily visualize the radio ad in their head and remember it from start to finish. Over the years, their interpretations from local radio have been transferred to other Croatian radios, but few have stood out in such a way.

Vortex
However, today it is very difficult to be original, but there are quite a few original and quality domestic advertising works, says Bajović. – Today, any ad filmed in the world among creatives is not retold because we can go to YouTube and immediately see what it is about – he explains. The good side of this is that any individual who creates something of their own can electronically send their work to all corners of the world in just a few minutes. However, agencies in the small domestic market do not show overly great openness to ideas from abroad (with exceptions!), all out of fear that the client will reject it in advance. In domestic production, humorous ads are mostly successful in the performance of acting faces that celebrate the existence of beer or persuade us to switch to a new mobile operator. On the other hand, experts point out that there is not much difference between domestic humor and that of some other larger countries. The significant difference between domestic and, for example, American humorous ads is in the size of the market, considering the size of the geographical, population, and financial segments. Since they have more consumers, producers, and creatives, as well as fluctuating money, according to the law of large numbers, America is at the top. However, if it were in Croatia’s place, marketing experts claim that the situation would be the same as it is now.

America vs. Croatia
When we look at financial data, comedian Jerry Seinfeld was hired, among others, for a new Microsoft campaign worth $300 million aimed at changing the image of the well-known computer company and attracting as many people as possible with an interesting and funny ad. Seinfeld appeared in the ad with the company’s president, receiving $10 million for his participation. Immediately after the first episode, he quit because the ad was funny but also completely incomprehensible to the public. Americans spend the most on advertising during the Super Bowl, and advertisers come out with campaigns that are, like, memorable for that year.
So, the story is about what is presented during the Super Bowl, which shows the latest trends. Of course, this is so because half a minute of advertising is the most expensive then, more expensive than on any other program or at any other time of the year.