Sumant Bhattacharya, VP, Planning, Lowe: Humour is The New Cultural Force

Sumant Bhattacharya, an MBA (EPGP) graduate from IIM Indore and currently Vice President of Strategic Planning at Lowe, Lintas and Partners discusses the increasingly important role of humour in our lives and how brands can tap into this cultural force. 

Airtel seemed to be getting away with its stance on net neutrality. But then, a strange thing happened: AIB joined in.

They made a video simplifying the concept of net neutrality, urging their audience to write to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), expressing their disagreement with the idea.

I don’t know how many of the 5 lakh+ people who sent e-mails to TRAI were influenced by the AIB video, but the video had 2.5 lakh views in the first week itself (I wrote to TRAI after watching the AIB video, so count 1 person at the very least).

I am not making a direct connection between AIB, net neutrality, TRAI and the number of e-mails generated. My point is about humour: humour has  been expanding its playground lately; moving from traditional spaces reserved for it such as comedy shows and sms jokes and getting into areas of social, political and economic importance.

Humour is a cultural force now.

It was Humour that rescued Aliya Bhatt from her disastrous appearance on Koffee with Karan. Genius Of The Year was no video-on-a-lark but a well-thought out exercise. Given the task, a group of professionals knew that humour would work well in this case.

A recent report suggests that while the Indian Premier League no longer has a strong pull on restaurant patrons, stand-up nights at pubs have been playing houseful. Flip through GQ, and you’ll find Vir Das showcasing today’s fashion. Switch on TV and you’ll find Kapil Sharma and Abish Mathew endorsing brands.

So gone are the days when humour played the sidekick to the hero in cultural representation (from Rajendra Nath, Jagdeep to Johnny Lever). Humour is mainstream and central to most narratives today.

The predominance of humour in cultural narratives and  its ability to touch everyone may have lessons for brands: humour can help make a brand’s point-of-view a part of the cultural narrative because humour is leading that narrative today. Humour can make a brand’s issues a part of social conversations. What more can a brand ask for? (Image courtesy ronethebuzzcincy)