Ep. 110 - The Last Laugh: Has the Advertising Industry Lost Its Funny Bone? | Dom Boyd, Kantar

Times are tough. And, as such, in the past few months, brands have taken their duty to communicate purpose seriously - too seriously. This week we’re joined by Dom Boyd, managing director of market research company Kantar and previously of adam&eveDDB. Dom says there’s a concerning trend in creative advertising: we’ve lost our sense of humour. Kantar has crunched the numbers and found that funny ads are becoming harder to find. While we are in a pandemic, Dom believes that people don’t need intermittent reminders that life can suck - ad breaks are annoying enough. So why have brands cowered away from comedy, how can advertisers reverse the trend and what are the differences in tone between traditional and digital? We discussed all of this and more, revealing Kantar’s own data on the matter and Theo and Eve’s advice for brands who want to use social to inject some comic relief back into their creative.