The process that leads consumers to choose a particular product/brand is seldom rational. Being aware of this irrational component helps marketers to find effective strategies to influence consumers. According to this, emotion is a word that marketers have always to keep in mind. Indeed, people are more attracted by products that are able to create positive emotions and feelings in them. And, among all the emotions, fun is one of the most meaningful.

I agree with Bryn Green’s who entitled one of his articles “Humor sells”.  An effort to make advertising funny is always a worth effort.

I’m passionate about the automotive market and I think that it is one of the segments where marketers are able to create the most fascinating advertising. In the European market there are a lot of firms that use humor as an important tool to attract customers. Volkswagen makes the ads that I like the most for the emotions proposed.

The two emotions that VW marketers want to convey are passion for the tradition and love for the humor. These feelings are different but are both effective in order to consistently sustain the image of the brand. On the one hand, they want to appear as one of the most innovative and technological firms. As a matter of fact, it has always introduced brilliant solutions and revolutionary models. For instance, the marketing campaign devised for the launch of Golf V proposed the new model as the continuation of an icon, a myth. On the other hand, they use humor to attract new generations and to create positive feelings about the brand. This tendency toward humor is also linked to the desire of the company to create funny models such the Bettle (1938).  Anyway, among the recent VW ads, one of my favorites is the New Passat CC commercial, called “The nice try”.