By Heather Taylor<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Written by: Rob Fletcher, Founder and Creative Partner at isobel<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Frequently I ask the question: \u201cCan we be funny?\u201d. \u201cWell, erm, not \u2018funny funny,\u2019\u201d comes the response. \u201cWitty, yes, a little sense of humor, maybe\u201d. It gets me thinking that humor often is the most engaging element of the work we do. I grew up around funny ads. Not just beer ads. Most advertisements back then used comedy to draw you in. I guess it was the lack of SFX and CGI; back then agencies relied on writers. In advertising, in the work we produce, it seems to be an avenue we\u2019re not encouraged to take anymore. And that\u2019s not very funny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Good creative agencies build cultures around being human, creating real voices for brands and businesses. I think the best human trait is the ability to laugh, to make each other laugh. If you look at the beer brands that we\u2019ve worked with recently, from Greene King to Old Speckled Hen, you can see how we\u2019ve used comedy to communicate. Comedy and beer have always gone hand in hand because it’s at the core of the conversations that we have while we drink pints in the pub. It\u2019s lighthearted, jovial and ultimately, funny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When we started thinking about Old Speckled Hen we wanted to make sure that what we produced was in line with the identity of the product. It\u2019s a beer that sits outside the norms, we wanted to make that something that stood out. Making their iconic fox a stand-up comedian gave him a character. We wanted him to feel like a man in the pub that you want to stand next to for a chat. We knew that to get the comedy right we had to consult a comedian and that\u2019s how we started working with Mike Shepherd. Mike is a professional stand-up comedian who hosts our regular isobelly Laughs<\/em> comedy events and is someone who is thinking about comedy 24\/7. We wanted to work with him to nail the tone of the jokes in the ads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n