The Oracle Happiness report saw that consumers are looking at brands that can make them laugh or smile after more than two years of living in a pandemic. However, the report also found businesses are wary of putting more humor into their marketing campaigns.
The Oracle research found that 91% of people in Asia prefer brands to be funny and 76% would choose a brand that uses humor over the competition even if they have to pay more.
The Happiness Report is made possible by Oracle in partnership with Gretchen Rubin, the best-selling author of “The Happiness Project.” The research report includes insights from more than 12,000 people across 14 countries, and 5,254 from Japan and Asia-Pacific (JAPAC) found that people are searching for new experiences to make them smile and laugh and will reward brands that embrace humor with loyalty, advocacy, and repeat purchases, and walk away from those that don’t.
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The Oracle global study found that 85% of consumers in JAPAC are looking for new experiences to make them smile. However, business leaders are concerned that any misstep in may cause their brands to being canceled or ditched by consumers with 76% of business leaders fear using humor in customer interactions. However, the report also saw that 90% of business leaders see the opportunity to use humor to enhance the customer experience and believe that their brand can do more to make customers laugh or smile.
Data insights
“There are many different factors that go into creating happy customers and in this research, we decided to examine humor as it is one of the most nuanced,” said Rob Tarkoff, executive vice president and general manager, Oracle Fusion Cloud Customer Experience (CX). “As the results show, most business leaders want to make consumers laugh more and understand it’s a critical part of establishing a true relationship. To be successful, brands need to put data at the heart of their customer experience strategy.”
Not having enough data insights (87%) to successfully deliver humor prevent business leaders from maximizing it in their campaigns.
“For brands looking to contribute to the happiness of their target audience, it starts with data and knowing your customers,” Rubin said. “Only then, can you bring the appropriate mix of humor, personality, and brand experience that will drive loyalty and brand advocacy.”
Business leaders would be more confident using humor when engaging with customers if they had better customer visibility (54%) and access to advanced technologies like artificial intelligence (37%).
People want brands to make them smile and laugh, but business leaders are scared of using humor in customer interactions for fear of being canceled. According to the report, consumers will reward brands that embrace humor with loyalty, advocacy, and repeat purchases and will walk away from those that don’t.
Loyal customers
The Oracle research found that If a brand uses humor, people are more likely to buy from the brand again (82%), recommend the brand to family and friends (81%), choose the brand over the competition (76%), and spend more with a brand (67%).