The Funny Thing About Marketing…

Is it just me, or is comedy just not as funny anymore? I went to a comedy club in Hollywood last night for the first time in I don’t know how long (well, to give you an idea, the last time I went, smoking was still allowed in the clubs in California). In the B.K. era (Before Kids), I had gone to many comedy shows and remember laughing so hard it felt like my sides were going to split. In contrast, last night there were a few guffaws, but the rest were small giggles, if that. So that the night did not go entirely to waste, I’ll use it as blog fodder to relay some marketing principles that you can apply whether you are using humor in your campaigns or not.

• Freebies can help you get customers. We chose the club we went to because it offered free admission before 9 pm on Sunday nights. But with the two-drink minimum, the club still made money instead of having two empty seats. Plus, with more people in the room, the comedians perform better, which improves the overall product and presumably makes people want to return another time. By giving a little, they get a lot.

• Use your internal resources wisely. The first part of the evening showcased some of the comedy club’s staff, who are mostly struggling comedians hoping for their big break. Each person had about 5 minutes on stage, and we must have seen at least 10-15 people in that time. Some were funnier than others, but from the club’s point of view they get an unending stream of hungry comics wanting to work for them, as well as the possibility of being able to say that they discovered the next big star. Do you have staff who could be more involved in improving and marketing your product in ways beyond their job titles?

• Shock value is overrated. Having seen so many stand-ups perform one after the other, the truism emerged that the number of swear words in the act was inversely proportional to how funny the person was. Dropping F-bombs seemed to be the fall-back position when someone did not have much talent. In marketing, companies are sometimes tempted to do flashy publicity stunts when they don’t have much of substance to back them up. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that getting people’s attention for a moment is all you need to do to be successful.

• Pay close attention to your audience. A good comedian is constantly gauging the audience’s response to his material and adjusting how it’s being delivered. When one joke falls flat, he can take a different tack, changing the topic or energy level or making a joke about how much of a dud the previous joke was. Good marketers also need to constantly evaluate and readjust how they are delivering their campaigns, based on the audience’s reactions.

• Connect with the familiar. The jokes that were the funniest (to me, at least – I don’t know about that weird guy in the row in front of us who howled at everything) were the ones about everyday life. These were things like driving in LA, having kids, having to put the airplane tray tables in a locked and upright position (or else the plane will crash!). Somehow the jokes about transvestite hookers just didn’t connect with me as much. Use the situations or ideas that are most familiar to your audience to make your point.

• Don’t bury the lede. After sitting through umpteen different comedians, we were ready to leave around 11:30 even though the show was scheduled to go until 2 am. We got up and stepped out the door just before we heard the MC introduce the next act — Andrew Dice Clay. I don’t know that I would have particularly cared to see him perform, but at least he was someone I had heard of. If the club had wanted to keep people from leaving early, they could have given a hint that someone well-known would be coming on soon. While it’s good to use the lure of the unexpected to keep people’s attention, if you wait too long, you may lose their interest.

Maybe someone should start a Comedy Marketing School, like they have Comedy Traffic School. But I think next time I’m in the mood to laugh I’ll go see an improv troupe like the Groundlings now that I’ve seen the state of stand-up. And I’ll bet there are a slew of other marketing lessons that we could draw from them.

Photo Credit: stephanieontour