For Gen Z and Gen Alpha, clubbed as Next Gen (aged 13 to 28 years), humour goes beyond entertainment to connect, communicate and make sense of the world, said the study, covering more than 6,000 social media users in the US, UK, Canada, France, Germany and India. Humour is the social language of Gen Z and Gen Alpha use to express themselves, talk about serious issues, navigate culture and also to decide which brands get their attention. These findings are part of a new multi-country study by social media and messaging app Snapchat and Omnicom Advertising.
Ninety% of Indian respondents said humour helps them express things they might not otherwise say directly, 91 per cent admitted they pay more attention to brands that are funny and 88% are more likely to consider buying them. Because it has become something much bigger for Gen Z and Gen Alpha, why Snapchat and Omnicom picked humour is. Because humour travels across languages, regions, subcultures and increasingly through highly contextual references,” Subramanyeswar said, in India, this becomes particularly interesting.
Subramanyeswar, chief strategy officer, India, for Omnicom Advertising. “Humour has become social shorthand. A meme can communicate recognition, irony, affection, anxiety or dissent faster than an explanation can. “What’s making it seem bigger than it is, is social media proliferation, the increased shareability and scale of funny videos, posts and memes and the easy access to tools that help create them. Humour was very much a part of traditional media advertising evident, for instance, in the iconic Fevicol ads remembered for their understated wit and sparkle. “Great humour still comes from observing life closely. That was the genius of Piyush Pandey’s work. Fevicol didn’t chase jokes. It found humour in recognizable Indian behaviour and connected it brilliantly to the product. But television humour travelled mostly from brands to audiences. Audiences remix it, make memes, and sometimes improve upon the original.
It is used to articulate their identity, signal belonging, deal with awkwardness and even talk about serious things, said S. “Gen Z is tuning out traditional, highly scripted ads for their cultural obsolescence and gravitating toward absurdist, self-aware humour that offers a refreshing antidote to the daily uncertainty,” said Ashish Mishra, CEO, Interbrand India and South Asia. Both Gen Z and Gen Alpha have rejected the old order having grown up in a world marked by unprecedented anxieties and they are finding their own playbook for everything in life, Mishra said. Humour in Indian advertising is decades old, and it’s not a new trend, said Abhijit Avasthi, founder of Sideways Consulting. Digital media creates a sense that it’s all around us,” Avasthi said. That is why the work survived long after the media moment in which it appeared,” said Subramanyeswar. Culture moves at the speed of the feed, and the lifespan of a joke can be extraordinarily short,” Subramanyeswar said.
“Today’s humour also travels between people, mutating as it goes. Hence brands today need the timeless ability to understand human behaviour, and the timely ability to understand the codes through which culture is expressing itself right now, he said.
