“Comedy sticks, and it’s a really good tool to get people to like your brand,” Rob Baird, co-founder and CCO at Preacher, said. “People inside and outside the industry are longing for this kind of entertainment—along with cute animal videos, it’s the kind of thing we share most often with our friends.”
Data and insights
The inclusion of humor was both “data-led and insight-driven,” Brannelly said. She and her team had noted a recent surge in humor among lauded work, including Ogilvy’s “Hornicultural Society” and 2023 Grand Prix winners “R.I.P. Leon” from Apple and “The Last Performance” from insurance carrier Partners Life and Special New Zealand.
Research firm System1 also crunched the numbers, finding that 52% of Film Lions winners in 2023 leaned into humor, a jump from 43% in 2022. More comedy hit the Cannes short lists, Brannelly said, and snagged prizes from regional awards shows.
And Brannelly gathered feedback from industry veterans, who seem to have an appetite for lighter fare after the dour pandemic era, she said, noting that response to the new subcategory has been strong. Cannes has not released entry figures.
Per the guidelines listed on the Cannes website, those vying in the subcategory “should use wit and satire to provide amusement and create memorable, laughter-inducing connections with audiences.”
Winners will not take home a Cannes Humor Lions. But humor may be a determining factor in scoring a Gold Lion in the Film or Media or Brand Experience category, putting humor on par with copywriting or art direction.
“Work could get a Film Lions based on the way it told a story through the humor lens,” Brannelly said.
Universal language
Entries must detail the “cultural context” into which the campaign fits. That’s not the same as spoiling the joke by overexplaining it, Brannelly said, but rather giving the lay of the land in the community and country of origin.
