Should You Use Humor in Your B2B Videos?

As the B2B environment is transforming into a more B2C-like, creative, and emotional one, a growing number of brands in the sector are incorporating humor into their videos. And not just on TikTok, YouTube Shorts, or Instagram. Scroll through your LinkedIn feed and you’ll see that the third or fourth of the videos popping up are designed to make you laugh.

However, even the goofiest marketers tend to get paralyzed at first when they have to decide: to be humorous or not to be humorous in their videos?

Their dilemma is valid. As you’re marketing your product to business decision-makers, you want to maintain that high-profile expert status that makes you credible. So what if funny videos make you look frivolous to your prospects and turn customers away?

If you are frequently concerned about it too, this is for you:

Visual storytelling with humor converts like crazy. Humor plays an instrumental role in attracting prospects and forming strong social bonds with them. Using humor in B2B videos may seem risky at first but done right, it can even increase your authority and set you apart from your competitors. 

The key findings researchers have made about humor in marketing:

• 75% of consumers are looking for humor when interacting with a brand.
• 53% of people enjoy an ad better if it’s funny.
• Provoking laughter, and humor helps you build trust by stimulating endorphin release into the body and promoting bonding with your audience.
• Advertising using humor results in positive affect transfer, increased attention, and a greater ability to process information.
• Humor increases the number of reactions to visual content.

Now let’s see how you can benefit from going the comedic route with your videos!

Multiplied performance 

Humorous-tyle videos from B2B brands can generate 500% more reach and engagement. That’s right. And the reason behind this incredibly high performance is that people want to be entertained.

Close your eyes for a second and picture the past few videos you shared on social with your co-workers. They were mostly memes in video format, a parody of a typical scene in your niche, or a funny video ad, right?

This is how we humans are wired. We want to laugh. And today we want to laugh more than ever before this century.

The past few years were tough for all of us — as long as we could breath a sigh of relief of getting out of Covid, a war broke out and now we’re navigating a worldwide recession. Trying to escape from negative physical and mental surroundings, our psyches are drawn toward amusement. According to Semrush, 58% of the primary impressions that make TikTok videos viral is happiness, a fact that supports this idea.

Therefore, brands that convey their brand messages in a fun way win. With humor, you can break down barriers, make complex topics more approachable, and quickly create a memorable brand experience.

Increased brand awareness

When they don’t know you exist

A new brand has to cut through the noise to succeed.

Prospects are tired of seeing the usually dry content they are overwhelmed with in B2B. And Millennials are getting into decision-maker positions and they appreciate brands that are bold enough to use humor. This means that to scale as a new brand, it will no longer be enough to create educational and promo videos alone.

By creating humorous videos that make people laugh out loud, you’ll generate reactions, shares, and comments, reaching a wider audience. This way, you’ll become memorable and get in front of even those prospects who wouldn’t stop scrolling seeing a how-to video.

When they already talk about you in the street

For long-term business success, you need to constantly build and maintain customer trust even if you have a well-known brand. And humor-based videos are an effective trust-builder.

Videos infused with humor humanize your brand and make the relationship between your brand and your customers stronger. If you put out content that uses industry-specific references, your audience will think that you are an expert because only those who joke around about industry matters confidently who know what they are doing. And by adding the killer visual component to your message that video provides, you can overperform your competitors with ease.

Also, humorous videos generate a feeling of community. Coming across them, your prospects will feel that you really understand them, and with you, they are home. So you can create a positive image and atmosphere linked to your brand which opens up the opportunity for you to sell without being salesy.

5 tips to use humor-based approach in your B2B videos well

1. Always put your customer first

Never, ever make fun of your customers. Social media is full of funny TikTok-style and meme videos with captions like, “When your client…”. Right, you can laugh about common situations with your fellow marketers and build a connection through that, but remember, these contents are public. Your prospects and existing customers can see them too. Watching these videos, they might think that you do not respect them at all.

2. Be relevant

If you stay relevant, your audience can relate to you better, and humor is the best tool for that.

Reacting to what’s going on in the world through humorous videos helps you build bridges between you and your prospects because it shows them that you have something to say about a topic that is on everyone’s mind.

Pop culture offers an infinite amount of opportunities to help your audience escape from boredom. Consider trending topics, happenings at events such as Hugh Grant’s famous interview at the Oscars, and evergreen memes like baby Yoda being cute. 

3. It has to be authentic

Humor will only serve you in the long run if you stay authentic. Whether it’s a video ad or a TikTok-style video where you hopped on a trend, it has to be in sync with your brand message. So make sure the context of the story doesn’t throw a negative light on your brand. It's better to pass up the opportunity to generate a massive number of impressions with a meme everybody is using than regret it later.

4. Know the right time and place

Humor can generate cathartic emotions and portray events from new perspectives, so make sure you use it in the right way and at the right time. Whether to use it or not always depends on the situation and the people you’re targeting. Perhaps it’s best to leave out humor from your pitch video. Or your investors would absolutely love it?

5. Unleash your creativity

Let your imagination run wild. Jot down all your ideas and edit later. Experiment with the many layers of humor and explore what works best for you. Be open to new possibilities and let your creativity shine. The more creative you use humor, the higher the chance you’ll stand out. 

Brilliant examples of humorous B2B branded videos

MNTN Performance TV

This video commercial from MNTN features actor, humorist, and filmmaker, Ryan Reynolds, playing two characters — a presenter and an MNTN customer who’s talking about the benefits he’s experiencing using MNTN in a hilarious way.

In this video, Reynolds, who is also co-owner of the company, is mastering a sense of sarcasm of testimonials that’s absolutely appropriate and captures attention. Well done!

HubSpot

Who hasn’t seen HubSpot’s latest ad campaign, A HubSpot Success Story?

The CRM giant built the concept on humor-based storytelling, featuring actor Kathryn Kahn who plays an outlaw and CEO. In these video commercials, you can see Kathryn in various historical but fictional scenes from the Wild West to a pirate enterprise, she talks about how she achieved her business goals in a fun way. Aye aye!

tl;dv

Meeting recorder and transcriber platform tl;dv has a genius content strategy featuring nothing but humorous videos.

They create extremely fun videos illustrating stories of corporate life, with a special focus on software development roles.

‍tl;dv videos are exceptionally effective because the scenes and dialogue they use are specific and tailored to the pain points of their target audience. Plus, the user-generated content style enhances their authentic image. Killer! You just want to watch more.

Click here to watch the video.

Ready to boost your video performance with video? Book a call with us today to discuss how we can help you stand out with the power of humor.

‍