Does your brand voice really need humor?

In the past few months, I’ve heard a bit of talk about injecting humor into brand writing. First, from a client. Then from one of those AI-generated LinkedIn articles. And then most recently from an article in The Drum.

There are a lot of arguments for why humor is great and helpful in an increasingly AI-driven world, so I’m not going to feed the fed horse. I will say this though, and this is a hill (or horse) I am willing to die on:

Humor is not for every brand.

Some categories more easily lend themselves to a lighthearted brand voice (e.g. food and beverage) so weaving humor in at any point can generally be fairly simple…easy, even. On the other hand, consumers often expect—or even prefer—a certain level of seriousness from other categories (e.g. healthcare, finance). But even within these groups, humor works better for some than for others.

Why? Authenticity.
Is that cliché? Yes. Is it true? Also yes.
Clichés exist because they are often built on enduring truths.

One of which is this: If your humor isn’t strategically built into brand’s identity, it’s more likely to flop than fly.
Because jamming a funny bone in out of the blue can be terribly awkward. Think of your most serious friend or family member—maybe a stern and pretentious aunt. Now imagine that one day they showed up out of the blue and started making fart jokes. Ridiculous, right? Yes, a bit of an unlikely scenario too, but you get the point.

Throwing humor in out of the blue can be disconcerting and unnerving. In worse cases, it can even undermine credibility, and have your audience wondering things like, “What else is changing with this brand? Will the quality of their products change too? Are their values still the same?”

And that’s even before accounting for the type of humor. Is it sarcastic, dry or ironic? Or witty and irreverent? Is it off-beat or off-color? And do any of these shades of humor even match your brand?

The mathematics of incorporating humor into a brand can be a complex undertaking. So you do not want to just dive in headlong and risk compromising your brand—and business—for a quick chuckle. Chances are you brand doesn’t really need “humor”—it needs something else.

Do the work to figure out what that something else is.