Social Media Advertising for Brands: The Year of Music and Comedy

From Gen-x to Alpha, music and comedy are going to be key components for stand-out social media advertising for your brand in 2025.

Kantar predicts that successful social media advertising campaigns will be loud (literally), creative and exciting.

Marketers can no longer afford to bend their existing creative to fit on social media.

Brands must create campaigns that are optimised for social media for maximum impact.

And it’s not one size fits all. The trick here is to understand specific audiences and how they engage with information on social media.

As our director Cliff Ettridge said in an earlier blog:

Biological research suggests that as humans, we have humour hardwired into our brains; we have a genetic predisposition to laugh.

So, this is all natural to us. It’s what makes us tick. And when we can communicate authentically then that will increase brand awareness and help to drive sales.

So how might we go about this?

Pushing the Boundaries: Experimenting with Music and Comedy

When it comes to social media, users are seeking authentic connections.

According to Kantar’s research, each generation connects with different factors:

Gen-X: Nostalgia and familiarity.

Millennials: Authenticity and relevance.

Gen-Z: Trends and humour.

Gen Alpha: Playfulness and interactive content.

An overarching theme here is entertainment and engagement.

So, forget over-polished, highly promotional social media advertising campaigns, and roll up your creativity sleeves.

Hootsuite coin this evolution ‘the creative disruption trend’ and encourage marketers to take full advantage of it:

Social media is the perfect playground for pushing creativity further, a place
where even the most buttoned-up brands can have a little fun. It’s the channel where making sacrifices for creativity is welcome, even expected.

So, what are the rules?

The rules are…break the rules.

Hootsuite’s data shows that new, exciting and out of the ordinary social media posts create more buzz and traction.

According to their survey, 43% of organisations in the last year have experimented with new social media personas, and have seen great results.

So, even if it feels slightly at odds with your previous campaigns, or your website, or your overarching tone of voice, don’t be afraid to push your brand out of its comfort zone.

Obviously, apply some judgment to this, but in general – be adventurous with your social media advertising campaigns and utilise the platform.

What is it About Music?

As Martin Lindstrom, in his 2008 bestselling book Buyology notes –

visual images are far more effective, and more memorable, when they are coupled with another sense – like sound or smell.

And this still rings true today. Alas, we haven’t made the technological advancement to incorporate smell into social media campaigns…yet. But we do have music.

Music can evoke strong emotions.

Our Applied Behavioural Scientist Mark Hauser notes:

Music does affect us. Experiments have shown that diners played jazz music spend longer at their tables than those exposed to dance music. A branch of McDonalds has even played classical music to reduce anti-social behaviour.

 

Apple’s 2007 iPod Nano advert is a great example of this.

It’s been 17 years since this ad was released, but I bet if you saw it at the time you’ll remember Feist’s ‘1234’.

A quirky, upbeat indie-pop song that perfectly encapsulated the musical promise of the product. And Apple’s innovative brand identity.

Whenever I hear that song now, it reminds me of being 13 and begging my parents to buy me an iPod Nano to listen to Kings of Leon on. A positive association was formed at the time, which is still in place today.

Similarly, ads with catchy jingles often stay within our memory.

Domino’s do this really well, their signature ‘domino-hoo hoo’ yodel, first established in 2021, is an earworm for many of us.

It echoes through my brain every now and again – and makes me think about ordering a pizza.

Case in point – the jingle has done what it needed to do: sell pizza.

While we’re not suggesting that brands must create bespoke jingles to stay on trend, what is clear is the choice of music for your social media campaign is very important to:

• garner an emotional response
• drive sales
• create brand awareness

So, when choosing music for social media campaigns, think carefully!

Tone

While we want to bang the experimental drum this year, it’s still important to match your music to the tone of your creative. It must help to convey the messaging, and reflect the content of your campaign.

Brand Identity

While your campaign could be out of the ordinary for your brand, it should still align with your brand’s core mission. Therefore, the music should too. If your experimenting with a slightly more upbeat tone for your core messaging, make sure the music matches this.

And of course, always avoid any copyright issues – make sure your music is either made in house or royalty free.

Channel the Chuckle: Use Humour to Widen Your Reach

Comedy is back, and marketers must take advantage of it.

As Andrew Robertson, chief executive officer at Omnicom, stated in his speech at Cannes 2023 :

If brands are truly looking to make the world a better place,” the executive said, “we could do a lot worse than make people laugh.

Since the pandemic, several elections, economic uncertainty, rising energy costs and global unrest, consumers are tired of promotional content – they’re seeking escapism or light relief through humour.

But marketers need to take comedy as seriously as they would music, visuals or logo. Comedy is an art and it must be based in strategy and data for it to land with your audience and in turn for your brand.

You don’t want egg on your face – and depleted sales.

As Mediacat warns us, to avoid an advert falling flat we must ‘make the product relevant to the joke being told.’

Paddy Gilmore of Mediacat champions the Michael Cera- CeraVe advert as a key example of humour done well.

CeraVe found that there was already an established joke on Reddit threads that pointed to Michael Cera, the comedy actor, being the secret CEO of skincare brand CeraVe.

With research, water-tight strategy and their star persona – CeraVe were able to tap into the social media conversation and jump into the joke with their fake CEO- the naturally unassuming and comedically nuanced Cera.

A perfect match between brand and persona, the campaign performed very well across social media – with Michael Cera even signing autographs at select stores across the USA that were selling the product.

Genius!

Final Thoughts

For brands and marketers, music, comedy and creative experimentation have the power to transform your social media campaigns.

By tapping into the emotional resonance of music and the universal appeal of humour, brands can create authentic, engaging work that connects with their audiences on a more meaningful level.

Understand your audience, do the work, find the data and push the boundaries with your creative.

Have fun with your campaigns, embrace novel approaches, and drive engagement and results.