Head of likeability, head of comedy: new era, new titles
As funny becomes the new serious, adland is set for a lot more than just belly laughs, writes Dominic Mills.
Last week I saw a great presentation from a top planner (Nikki Crumpton of Mother) at Thinkbox’s Big Think event. She said she’d like to change her job title to Chief Likeability Officer, the premise being that her job was to make the ads as likeable as possible.
Likeability equals charm, and if you can charm you are half-way to converting someone to your cause.
Ordinarily I’d poke fun at a title like Chief Likeability Officer, but as I had just met an agency with a Head of Comedy, whose job is to bring a comedic, entertainment, sensibility to her agency’s output, there’s obviously more to this than meets the eye.
As the old joke has it: ‘They laughed when the agency wanted to hire a head of comedy. They’re not laughing now.’
Of course, some agencies have always set out to make funny ads (that is, when they’re not being serious, rational or over-emoting, or failing to make you laugh). But they often fizzle out, often for want of a willingness or vehicle to push the idea on.
But at agency Brothers and Sisters (clients include Carphone Warehouse, Sky and Centre Parcs), funny is now the new serious.
To make the point, in July this year it hired well-known comedy producer Lucy Robinson – whose track record includes The 11 O’Clock Show and Pramface – as Head of Comedy.
I’m going to paraphrase here, but at Brothers and Sisters, the thinking goes like this.
1. Advertising can’t compete with cat videos and the tons of short- and longer-form content out there.
2. Consumers, especially millennials, won’t let brands into their lives unless they a) give them free stuff and b) make them laugh.
3. Brands stand a chance if they can build ‘entertainment franchises’ that can operate across multiple platforms and in multiple dimensions. Comedy is a shortcut to producing messages that people will take on board and share.
4. This involves working with comedy talent to produce more than just an ad.
5. Getting the best out of comedy talent is more than just a matter of giving them a funny script. You get the best from them when they are genuinely involved and feel understood, loved and appreciated.
6. The best comedy is a co-operative process, requiring particular skills in writing, shaping, editing and directing. And sometimes a producer’s role is just to tell the talent ‘it’s not funny’.
7. Genuine comedy producers, those with a track record in TV and radio, know how to do this.
And this is how Lucy Robinson came to be Head of Comedy at Brothers and Sisters, the first person to hold such a title in adland as far as I can tell.
You can see the first fruits of her involvement – although the creative process was well under way by the time she came on board – in the agency’s current Keith Lemon work for Carphone Warehouse.
Comedy and comedians are inherently risky – when it goes wrong, it’s really bad (the Paul Whitehouse Aviva series looks like one that has overstayed its welcome, or the occasion, some years ago when Denis Pennis fell out with Woolworths) – and clients can therefore be nervous.
Paddy Power is a good example of a brand for which risk is an essential part of building a comedy franchise, as it has found out and for which it has sometimes paid a high price.
So the arrival of Robinson at Brothers and Sisters can be seen as a means to turn the agency into a risk-free place to take comedy risks.
The issue for Carphone Warehouse was that it had essentially lost its core audience of 24-35 year-olds. They either weren’t watching TV, or were turned off by the over-rational sell.
Keith Lemon’s role therefore is to wrap the rational message – that Carphone Warehouse’s Pin Point service allows customers to get the right deal for them – into an entertainment package.
And thus we see him hitting the streets of Tokyo and Miami in two TV ads, backed up on social media by outtakes and Keith just messing around in the way only he does.
Just launching now we have a mobile app which invites you to upload your selfie from which Keith and the citizens of Miami will decide whether you are a ‘hotty’ or a ‘notty’.
Extra content is released every two weeks or so, giving the audience the time (assisted by some paid-for social) to discover the material for themselves and share it around.
Now it’s obvious that Keith Lemon is not everyone’s cup of tea (he is mine, and I am happy to admit I can’t get enough of Through the Keyhole), but he resonates with enough of the target audience to make an impact.
The point here, though, is that by nurturing Lemon, giving him a zone in which he feels comfortable (the films are directed by the duo, Chaplin and Forbes, who do the TV show) and allowing him to play to his particular set of talents, means not only does Carphone Warehouse get the best out of him, but it is also in the process of building an ‘entertainment franchise’ for itself.
It goes without saying that the ultimate test of the campaign is footfall/traffic and then conversion to sales. We don’t have those figures yet, but the engagement levels are certainly there: Miami views across all platforms are 171% up on projected levels, and Twitter engagement during the first episode of X Factor was more than 200% over target.
As I understand it, Robinson – who also has a series starring Vic Reeves coming up on Sky Arts – gets involved in pitches and looks at the agency’s creative ideas through a comedy lens.
It clearly doesn’t work for all clients, although lord knows some – financial services and utilities, especially – could do with it.
Many years ago the Pru managed this with the ‘We want to be together‘ series, featuring a lugubrious and hopelessly optimistic Brummie.
The real test of Robinson’s ability to create comedy franchises therefore will come when she can spread the practice across Brothers and Sisters other clients.
Other agencies, meanwhile, should take note.