Why so serious? The case for comedy in healthcare marketing

One of the most memorable things advertising can do is make someone laugh. Marketing effectiveness aside, in healthcare, humour can do so much more. From reducing stress and anxiety to improving pain management, laughter has been shown to provide a myriad of health benefits.???

Yet when it comes to healthcare marketing, we tend to take things very seriously. In this article we explore how humour can not only help brands but also improve health outcomes.???

The case for advertising comedy

Instead of explaining to you why comedy is effective, take a look at this ad from Roman...

The thinly veiled metaphor at the start is referencing this old Levitra ad...

Even though you were probably laughing AT the Levitra ad, I’d be willing to bet that the Roman ad is far more memorable (and overall, better at building equity in the brand).???

There is science to back it up. Laughter releases dopamine – which is associated with pleasure – which helps make the experience of watching the ad more enjoyable and thus memorable.??

Comedy also has an element of surprise. The unexpected resolution creates a cognitive dissonance that the brain then has to resolve by coding the event to memory.?

If you’re not being remembered, what's the point?

For a brand to grow, it must be ‘physically available’ (i.e. easy to find / access) and ‘mentally available’ (i.e. easy to mind).????

In healthcare, physical availability is complex but assuming license and reimbursement has been achieved, the main focus of marketing is maintaining ‘mental availability’. Historically, pharma brands only remained ‘easy-to-mind’ as long as sales teams were out in force and professional media was purchased en masse.??

Because we relied on skilled representatives, who can build relationships and flex to customers wants and needs, we got away with very rational, feature-led marketing materials. But when this approach is translated to digital media or email marketing, we’re lucky if brands are even noticed, let alone remembered.???

Today, we need to employ more emotion-led, brand building approaches to maintain brand share-of-mind. Humour is one of the best ways to do that.??

Humour is in decline

Comedy is hard. It’s a fine line between Christmas cracker and laugh-out-loud corker. And that might be why we are seeing a decline in the use of humour in advertising.??

Pharma specific data isn’t available, but I don’t think any of us would expect the line to track much above the x-axis.???

While healthcare brands need to approach comedy with caution, there are some safe bets that could generate big wins.??

Disease awareness?

The most obvious place for humour in the pharma marketing mix, is unbranded comms and awareness campaigns. It’s a territory where healthcare brands and organisations have dipped their toe in the water…?

Take Abbott’s recent Concussion Awareness Now ad with Rebel Wilson...

Or the classic British Heart Foundation’s Hands-only CPR with Vinnie Jones...

But you don’t need a famous face to make people laugh. Metro Victoria’s Dumb Ways to Die campaign to promote rail safety remains one of the most shared PSAs in history. The song charted in 28 countries, was covered over 200 times and most importantly reduced Metro accidents and deaths by 21%.?

Brand campaigns??

This is a trickier territory and it very much depends on the category your brand operates in. For life and death situations, building a brand or a campaign around making people laugh may not be quite right.???

However, in the right context, humour can help brands cut-through.??

Men’s health brand, Numan, know that guys don’t like to talk about their health, let alone their sexual health. So they use sarcastic, slapstick in-your-face humour to get them to take notice.??

Similarly, Evofem knew that women accept the status quo when it comes to contraception. So to launch Phexxi – a hormone-free contraceptive gel – they tackled category cliches head on with a witty, attention-grabbing campaign featuring Schitt’s Creek star Annie Murphy.??

While both these examples are direct-to-consumer, if humour is right for the category, the chances are it would work for HCP-targeted campaigns too.??

Patient support???

There is a wealth of data to show how humour can help achieve positive health outcomes. To list but a few of the benefits of laughter…?

• It can reduce stress by decreasing your heart rate and blood pressure. A therapeutic laughter programme helped reduce anxiety, depression and stress in breast cancer patients?
• It can help people tolerate painful procedures?
• It can improve your immune system. Positive thoughts release neuropeptides help fight stress and potentially even more serious illness?
• It's associated with improved quality of life for patients with COPD??

So instead of the same cookie-cutter patient support programme, hire a comedian. Laughter may well be the best medicine. It will not only help patients but I expect you’ll get the attention of your customers too.

Moving forward?

What’s also interesting about the Kantar data is that at times of hardship, brands appear to shy away from comedy. I’d argue it’s when we’re at our lowest, that humour could have an even greater impact.??

It’s a bit like advertising in a recession. Brands that maintain their budgets often win because other brands lose their nerve and cut. The excess share of voice (share of voice in relation to share of market) will be greater.???

The same goes for humour in healthcare. Where the comedic bar is so low, it might only need a little light-hearted step forward for brands to leap-out from the crowd.??

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Thanks for reading OUTSIGHT. We'll be back next month with more brand building inspiration from outside pharma.?

If you’re looking to challenge convention and explore new approaches for your brand, we'd love to talk: [email protected]?