Marketing that’s fun makes a simple promise to the customer based on emotion and the philosophy of “show, don’t tell”. It simply asserts – this product makes life more fun!

And who wouldn’t like a little more fun in their life? When you take away the pressure of family, work, and finances, fun plays a big role in fulfilling needs around belonging, self esteem, even self actualisation. Imagine a product that could do all that. We’d buy it.

Snapshot: 5 reasons why fun marketing matters.

• Reason #1: Fun ads grab attention. As online platforms become more and more cluttered over time, captivating your viewers matters more than ever before.
  
• Reason #2: Humour works. Sure, not all fun marketing campaigns are funny; but using playfulness to execute a punchline can disrupt your audience’s expectations of advertising, connecting with their sense of humour and making your campaign stand out in a positive way.
  
• Reason #3: Fun advertising campaigns are memorable. Creating branded content that evokes an emotional response can make your audience more likely to remember who you are and what you do.
  
• Reason #4: It helps tell stories. Taking a fun, play-based approach to the creative process can help brands break out of the box and find new, more interesting ways to put their message out into the world.
  
• Reason #5: It can increase engagement, especially on platforms your audience uses for entertainment. Social media marketers can craft a strategic presence that doesn’t take itself too seriously, and start conversations that entertain your following.

How can marketers create fun campaigns?

It’s no surprise that fun is generally colourful, nostalgic, cute, and energetic. All things that rarely if ever incite a fight or flight response. Instead they trigger the emotional, inner-child part of our brain that wants a little less responsibility and a little more enjoyment. A space where many purchases are made.

What your customer deems fun might be vastly different depending on their worldview. But generally speaking it’s things that make us laugh and feel good; and as marketers we can utilise our knowledge of our audiences to tap into their unique perspective of fun.

We’ve curated an assortment of marketing campaign examples that make use of fun in different ways, appealing to diverse audiences; keep reading to check them out.

Examples of fun marketing campaigns

Darth Vader Volkswagen

This commercial is built around the fun of imagination; adorable childhood conviction alongside a familiar character turns a moment of wide-eyed wonderment into an advertising piece that genuinely makes viewers laugh.

Home Alone Again

What do you get when you combine Google Assistant with the one-and-only Macaulay Culkin and an undeniably fun content concept? A sixty-second advertisement that became the number-one trending video on Youtube, that’s what.  

Who will save the Oreos?

This integrated campaign takes a sense of play to a whole new level, encouraging fans and other brands to get in on the fun of protecting OREO cookies at any cost. The mission sparked conversations all over social media and generated over 100 million impressions.

Alexa’s Body with Michael B Jordan

Here’s one way to create an ad that viewers want to watch over and over. Clever, humorous scripting all the way through the video and quality talent work together to deliver a simple brand message in a fun, memorable film. 

Belt Up by Dear Storyteller

Proof that a serious and important message can be effectively delivered in a fun way, this campaign encourages local sporting clubs to develop a stronger appreciation for seatbelts using a playful concept for promoting road safety.

Mechanical Rock: Go with the Data by Dear Storyteller

Taking a tongue-in-cheek approach to craft a memorable narrative around the importance of process, this content piece parodies some of the biggest backfires of all time to entertain and inform an audience rapidly accruing tech debt.

Shareable content that gets remembered

As Maya Angelou once famously said: “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” 

Fun is something that sticks with you; it’s an emotion you want to share, almost like a gift. And when your customers go to look back on who gave them that feeling, they’ll hopefully grow that same affection for your brand.

If you’d like to take the next step with your brand and create a marketing campaign built around fun, we’d love to talk strategy with you.