License to laugh

Recently, I was trolling on Brent Carpenter's boBlog and found this gem.

Hey All!

I’ll start this post off with a joke:

“A man is exhausted after a long day. He decides to go to bed and right just as he slides into his bed he hears a knock at the door. After getting up to answer it he sees that it’s a snail who then says to him “Hello, would you like to buy some magazine subscriptions?”

Furious that his sleep has been interrupted he winds up, and kicks the snail with all his might.

Two years later.

The man is sitting at home, watching television when the doorbell rings. He gets up to answer it, and it’s a snail who says to him “What the f@*k was that about!?”

His post was about how humor in advertisement makes us remember the ads better. Well, likewise, I remembered his otherwise run-of-the-mill post because of this joke. That is to say, I agree with his post and think humor is quite affective. For example, my favor ads are the ones for the French premier movie channel, Canal+

But humor isn't everything. While I agree that humorous ads makes the brand memorable, it takes more than a good joke to entice people to buy a product. In my opinion, a commercial needs, more than anything, an assertive image that is desirable. An ad that is merely funny would only place the product in the invoked set of product in the consumers' minds, but it wouldn't be in the retrieval set. While browsing on Youtube, I saw a funny ad from Mercedes that played on the stereotype of a dumb blonde, with a tagline that goes, "Beauty is nothing without the brain", then it cuts to a new Mercedes car. The message is clear: a Mercedes is not only beautiful, but also has powerful technology and engine. But does this message do what it set out to do, that is, to sell a car? I think not. In my opinion, this ad adds no value to the brand. It may provoke some cheap laugh from first time viewers, but it doesn't stimulate any deeper emotions or attachment. This is another ad from Mercedes. It is funny with a great sense of irony, but more than that, it sells on a certain lifestyle - dangerous, out of bound, adulterous, excitement.