Class-Clown Brands Are Trying to LoLz Us to Death

“I’m funny how? … Funny like I’m a clown? I amuse you?”

— Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci), “Goodfellas”

For generations advertising has honed a stand-up style of humor that blends commerce and comedy to entertain, inform and sell. …

But as social media devour consumer attention and ad spend, so the send-and-receive model of ad humor has (d)evolved. When speed trumps strategy and virality is all, the archetype of brand as stand-up — alone in the spotlight, demanding our attention, selling a joke — has spawned a new and chaotic model: brand as class clown.

Of course, not all brands have the aspiration (or ability) to beclown themselves. But those that do are embracing novel commercial comic stylings — wackaging, tacticality, brandinage — that together form a distinctive tone of voice: brandter. CONTINUED

Ben Schott, Bloomberg


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