Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

There’s something I noticed at Cannes.

And I’ve noticed it looking through everything recently submitted to Creative Works.

No laughs. Plenty of grit.

Under Armour from Droga5 New York. Strong women and gritty poems.

New Balance from BMB. Callum Hawkins grits his teeth and runs – 120 miles a week. “There are no short cuts to anywhere worth going."

Performance bike brand Specialized have made a film about kids with ADHD. From the gritmeisters at Goodby Silverstein.

Then there are the brands that want us to cry....

Caleb Warren, assistant professor of marketing in the University of Arizona’s Eller College of Management and lead author of the research, conducted a series of experiments that found different ads can be equally humorous to consumers but have very different effects on brand attitudes, depending on the type of humor used.

The research is based on the concept that people find humor in “benign violations” — that is, material that somehow threatens their sense of well-being, personal identity or beliefs, but in a harmless or inconsequential way. For example, a comical Reebok ad featuring an “office linebacker” tackling other office workers represents a benign violation, because viewers know the violence is staged and no one is actually being hurt.

But even benign violations can cross a line, according to the research, which explored the effects of “mild” versus “severe” benign violations on brand attitudes. According to Warren, advertisers should stay away from ads that feature highly inappropriate humor, humor with a specific target or “butt of the joke,” and humor that prompts avoidance by eliciting feelings such as disgust in addition to laughter....

It’s not that often that a billboard is so absurd that it invites widespread mockery and goes viral in the process. But this one has—a full six years after it was made.

The ad, from the Netherlands, was made by a Dutch agency called Etcetera for the Predictor pregnancy-test brand. With a quick glance, it’s clear something isn’t quite right. The man and woman seem extremely surprised by the reading on the pregnancy test....

Nothing says "family" like pretending to love the terrible gifts your relatives have gotten you for the holidays.

That, at least, is the basic premise of a new 30-second Christmas ad from Heineken starring Benicio del Toro, and emphasizing that Heineken is, technically speaking, a family-owned business.

Part of Publicis Worldwide's new "There's more behind the star" campaign, it's the latest in a series of spots, launched earlier this year, featuring the A-list actor as a spokesman for the brewer, whose logo is, like him, a star....