Humour - Why making her laugh, makes her buy

Are Media worked on this project in collaboration with The Lab– completing extensive cultural research along with a combination of qualitative and quantitative work. This was followed by scanning two thousand pieces of social media content using AI and machine learning to see what was resonating and making her laugh.
Humour improves ad receptivity for both men and women more than any other ad characteristic. Which poses the question – why is humour used so much more to ‘connect’ with men vs. women in advertising? A Kantar study found that just 22% of ads featuring women use humour vs 51% featuring men (Kantar, 2019).


To reflect, connect and emotionally thrive

The Role of humour in women's lives

These range from everything from escaping from reality, diffusing tension or giving strength or a different perspective. All have different angles for brands to acknowledge and leverage when using to connect with women.

At Are Media we believe that with the power of laughter, it is possible to unlock the emotional role that a brand wants to play in people’s lives, guide execution by aligning to culturally powerful expressions or ‘ways’ of using humour, and that this will enable brands to realize the possibilities of using humour to engage with women.


As part of the study, we also tracked the role of women in Australian humour which has changed significantly over the past 70 years – from being the butt of the joke or mere sex symbols back in the 70’s and 80’s, Australian women have now more than found their own voice when it comes to comedy.