Humor in B2B Marketing: 13 Examples to Inspire Your Next Campaign

What do an intense football game, a tired and hungry teammate, and a smart-mouthed grandma have in common?

Answer—Snickers.

Snickers’ hilarious 30-second Super Bowl campaign starring Betty White topped USA Today’s Ad Meter in 2010. It also generated a mind-blowing 91 days of media coverage, created brand buzz in over 85 countries, and helped relaunch White’s career.

There’s a reason funny messages are seen as more convincing. It’s proven to cut through the noise and increase memory recall. Regular exposure to humor can even encourage persistent behaviors in consumers.

Even for B2B marketers, there’s almost always a way to use humor to make your marketing more effective — if you know how to walk the line.

Ways to use humor in B2B marketing

• Play with common misconceptions about your brand or product
• Round up relatable GIFs and memes that speak directly to your buyer
• Try coloring books, comic books and interactive content  vs. ebooks and whitepapers
• Curate real stories from real customers
• Inject humor into your headlines, intro and above-the-fold copy

Funny or offkey? Check in with the Benign Violation theory

For humor to be effective, it has to differ from a preconceived notion we already have, while staying within the boundaries of what we consider humorous.

This is what’s known as Benign Violation, a theory developed by professor of marketing and psychology at the University of Colorado, Peter McGraw.

Based on the above theory, here are three things to keep in mind as you start integrating more humor to your marketing.

1. The type of humor you use should be tailored to your audience. Don’t use humor that alienates a certain group or subset.
2. Know when to use humor. There are some situations where it simply isn’t appropriate.
3. Keep the message moderate enough for your customers to understand and not get annoyed by it.

So what does this look like in practice?

Building on earlier research, Professor Willibald Ruch and his team of researchers at the University of Zurich have identified eight different categories of humor which they’ve named the “eight comic style markers.”

The eight comic style markers 

If the benign violations theory is the crust, the eight comic style markers are the cheese and toppings that make humor in marketing even more delicious. 

These eight comic style markers can be divided into two broad categories:

• Light styles of humor: Wit, humor, nonsense and fun.
• Dark styles of humor: Irony, sarcasm, cynicism and satire. 

When it comes to using humor in your marketing, it’s best to err on the side of the light styles, as they tend to come across as having a more positive tone.

Need inspiration? These 13 examples will help you develop your own hilarious marketing messages.

13 examples of B2B brands with an epic sense of humor

1. Zendesk – Zendesk’s alt landing page (and grunge band?)

Remember that time Zendesk created an entirely separate alternative website and…band?

Zendesk Alternative was the fictional grunge band that, though resentful about sharing a name with a boring software company, ultimately finds inspiration in the world of customer support, leading to a customer support concept album featuring lyrics like:

‘Customer service. It might make you nervous. But you cannot hurt this. My deepest purpose.’

The punchline: Showing the lighter side of your brand helps prospects and customers stop viewing you as a transaction, and start seeing you as a friend.

2. MailChimp – Did you mean MailChimp?

SaaS marketing history was made the day MailChimp partnered with the producers of true-crime podcast Serial to produce a beautifully lowkey 20 second audio ad in 2014.

Due to a mispronunciation of the company’s name by one of the voice contributors, the ad caused MailChimp to trend on Twitter with the hashtag #MailKimp and went on to inspire MailChimp’s 2017 “Did you mean MailChimp?” campaign.

Nine variants of ‘MailChimp’ such as KaleLimp, MailShrimp and VeilHymn were adopted by the brand — each with its own ridiculous product experience.

For VeilHymn, musicians Dev Hynes and Brydon Cook created an exclusive single called Hymn, for the campaign. Hymn’s interactive video on VeilHymn.com was designed to redirect to other websites created for the campaign.

The punchline: You don’t have to create an entire campaign dedicated to humor, but if you do bump into an organically funny opportunity, why not take it? 😉

3. LinkedIn – Hyper-relatable GIF roundup

If this collection of 20 ridiculously relatable gifs for marketers doesn’t make you laugh out loud, it will at least get a giggle out of you.

And honestly, there’s nothing much more to say on this. It’s essentially just a feel-good collection of gifs that as LinkedIn said: will make you laugh, cry and know you’re not in this marketing thing alone.

The punchline: Keep it simple and curate a list of relatable memes, videos, social posts, or other content that can light up your customer’s day.

4. Marketo – Big Marketing Activity coloring book

If anyone knows how hard it is to attract the attention of discerning B2B buyers, it’s Marketo.

The mega martech’s Big Marketing Activity coloring book encourages enterprise marketers to take a healthy creative break. And the description on their landing page sums it up perfectly:

From a content marketing perspective this book may look like a giant piece of “chocolate cake”, as in only here to entertain. But you can’t judge a book by its cover and you may be pleasantly surprised to find that this activity book consists of all the necessary elements of a successful and valuable piece of content: it’s useful, engaging, entertaining and most importantly, educational. So sit back, have fun, and expand your marketing knowledge.

When educational and creative content comes together, you know you’re onto a winner.

The punchline: Instead of just another whitepaper or ebook, create a downloadable resource with out-of-the-box activities prospects can engage with while learning something new.

5. Cisco – The SuperSmart adventure comic

Cisco offers a huge range of IT solutions for enterprises, including critical, but not so sexy, cybersecurity solutions.

According to a 2015 study, 54% of decision-makers view data security as crucial to their business, but only 50% had plans in place to protect their companies against a cyberattack.

Cisco set out to address this gap through—drum roll please—a comic book. 🦸

The SuperSmart comic covers the adventure of SuperSmart, a character created by Cisco who flies around the world fighting hackers and opposing threats to cybersecurity.

The punchline: Humor is a great way to help your prospects transition from awareness to action.

6. MarketingSherpa – Target marketing fails blog post

The team at MarketingSherpa gives their target audience a read that’s education, entertaining and painfully relatable with their epic “targeted” ads fails blog post.

It’ll leave you wondering how anyone could have thought this was a good idea. 🤦🏾‍♀️

To keep it kind (and benign), the article ends with an acknowledgement of the fact that we’re all human, and a warning to marketers to be more careful when targeting your audiences.

The punchline: Common misunderstandings or misconceptions about your brand or product can be a great launching pad for humorous content. Just be sure to keep it kind.

7. Follow Up Boss – Cringeworthy curation of real stories

Follow Up Boss regularly uses real examples from real people in their B2B content. But this time around, they decided to shake things up a little by rounding up true stories from their real estate users in this hilariously struggle-is-real expert roundup blog post.

What’s great about a community-led piece like this one is that it reminds us that behind every transaction, sit regular everyday humans. Folks that laugh, cry and are sometimes a little too quick to judge—just like everyone else.

The punchline: Challenge yourself to find the connections between your customer’s day-to-day struggles and your beliefs as a brand.

8. Punchline Conversion Copywriting – A shamelessly funny website

Lianna Patch is a humor-based copywriter with a homepage that definitely walks the walk. 

Cashew in point? The headline starts with a knock, knock joke. 😂

Lianna blends a serious mind for great copywriting with a relaxed and tongue-in-cheek tone across her site. Even her button copy (‘Give me just the tips’) stands out.

The punchline: Using humor within the first few lines of your home page or email marketing copy is a great way to grab and keep your reader’s attention.

9. Vistaprint – Fish, hotel, yoga?

Vistaprint is a global e-commerce company that offers small business owners a range of physical and digital marketing products.

They created a series of three videos for an ad campaign—Fish, Hotel, Yoga.

In less than a minute, each video shows a small business owner transforming what could have been a disaster into an opportunity, thanks to Vistaprint.

Our favorite has to be the HotYoga video. Yoga next to a smoking hot asteroid, anyone? 

The punchline: As long as you’re using references your audience will understand, it’s okay to sometimes blow things out of proportion. 💥😂

10. Slack – Euphoria: A tale of unending happiness 

Back in 2015, Slack partnered with Nashville-based creative agency Redpepper to create a colorful, light-hearted marketing campaign.

They took over four US cities—Cleveland, Charlotte, Minneapolis, and Milwaukee—with bright ads that were a joy to look at. 

Slack Marketing Director, Brad Morris, told Business Insider that they “wanted the campaign to express the very real benefits of Slack to people who have never heard about us, while also addressing the aspects of working life that everyone can relate to in a playful way that was in keeping with our brand.”

Billboards depicted happy employees with one powerful stat that said it all.

The punchline: Think about ways you can use humor to convey the unique benefits of your product. What’s in it for the end end user? How can you quickly (and humorously) make that connection in your prospect’s mind?

12. Turbo Tax – Let your customers prove how awesome you are 

It’s no surprise Turbo Tax has some pretty funny content—they’re in the same family as Mailchimp after all. The brand’s video testimonials are a perfect blend of empathy and humor.

For example, this video doesn’t feature any particularly hard-hitting humor, but it does showcase a real story about a teacher who was working from home and “freaking out” over his taxes. By letting the customer tell their story in their words, Turbo Tax instantly lightens the mood around a not-so-sexy topic.

Of course, then there’s the Spaghetti customer testimonial and the bilingual Get that Vacuum Money video. Both of which are sure to get you chuckling.

The punchline: Not sure how to inject humor into your marketing strategy? Let your customers do it for you.

12. Gong.io – Pretty much every article on their blog 😄

Gong.io is not only a leader in the revenue intelligence industry, but also a leader in creating awesomely witty marketing. Don’t believe us? Just check out their blog. 

Let’s start with this piece, These 6 Cold Email Examples Are So Good You’ll Want to Steal Them:

“We’ve rounded up 6 of the most insanely-persuasive, guaranteed-to-rope-you-in, so-good-you’ll-want-to-steal-them emails. Examples that got replies, were shared on social media, and (many of them) ultimately helped book that ever-elusive booked meeting.” 

Even if this feels too casual for your specific brand voice, there’s something to be learned from Gong’s approach.

In a highly saturated SEO landscape, their blog introduction packs a serious one-two punch of engaging tone and credible reader value prop.

The punchline: As long as the substance is there, feel free to get creative with how much humor you sprinkle into your messaging.

13. Adobe – Mean streets: Do you know what your marketing is doing?

Marketers are addicted to clicks, but at what cost? That’s the premise of Adobe’s clever and well-executed ‘Do you know what your marketing is doing’ video ad. 

The video was created by Goodby Silverstein & Partners and features a hapless marketer who goes in search of clicks on the wrong side of the streets. 

What makes this ad funny is how relatable it is. When the man tells the street click dealer, “I just need enough to get me through the quarter”, we all sympathize with the pressure to meet our KPIs.

The punchline: Tie your humor-driven marketing campaigns to a clear pain point to make sure your message gets across.

Make B2B marketing fun again

Humor has a place in every B2B marketing strategy. But it helps to know which elements will help you keep it kosher with your audience.

Whatever you do, don’t force it. Instead, relax, have fun, and focus on creating campaigns that let your audience know it’s always ok to have a laugh.