How to write funny

Sadly, not everyone is born funny. For most people, that just means you need to work on other aspects of your personality, or become so rich you don’t need a personality at all. For copywriters, it can pose more of an issue.

Here I’ll look at how you can write funny when the brief asks for it, how you can convince your client your jokes will land, and what to do if you’re as dry as a vegan cocktail sausage (which, as I recently discovered, is the driest thing ever created).

Read on, it might be a laugh.

When might funny be serious stuff?

Some brands aren’t funny brands at all. Things like debt collectors or funeral directors tend to steer clear of humour, and it’s probably for the best. No-one wants to be made to laugh while their car’s being towed away, or they’re dead. But there are plenty of brands where humour can play a major role, and not all of them are obvious.

Take, for example, life insurance brand Dead Happy. They use a lovely mix of dark humour and irreverence to turn a fairly boring, morbid subject into something that makes you smile. They won’t insure me ‘cos I’m diabetic, but I’m willing to forgive them for writing nice copy.

Then there are brands like Oatly, who seem to have formed a niche for writing nice copy on the side of oat milk packaging. This space could be used for really boring stuff, in which case no-one would ever read it, and it wouldn’t warrant a spot in Nick Parker’s excellent Tone Knob newsletter. But instead they fill it with lovely, funny tonal bits, making the packaging just as interesting as what’s inside it. It’s basically a small ad that lives inside your fridge door, which is incredibly savvy media spending.

There are loads of brands out there getting funny just right, and as the examples above show you, they don’t have to be traditionally funny products. Humour can be a great way to get your copy read, but a weapon with such power needs to be handled carefully. Which leads me nicley on to my next point…

How to get started with humour

If you fancy adding a little bit of lolling to your writing, hey! You’re in the right place! You have two options when it comes to making people laugh with lingo: Option 1: just write shit and see what sticks. Option 2: do some planning, using my fail-safe formula.

Now, I often go for option 1, but that’s because I’m a very experienced copywriter who, according to my mate’s 2-year-old daughter, is hilarious. But if you’re not, or humour isn’t something you specialise in, this formula can make it easier to get things right and convince your client you know what you’re talking about. It can also be used to understand what your client actually wants when they say, “Can we make this a bit wittier please?”

Step 1 - Get the levels right

Humour comes on a scale, and it can be a very personal thing. That’s why some people laugh at my jokes, and many, many, MANY more don’t even realise I’m telling them.

You need to know where on the scale your client is before you start. I use a ‘custard pie to Stewart Lee’ scale. Let me explain: At one end of the scale you have proper slapstick humour. It’s so obvious that everyone gets it, everyone knows you’re trying to be funny, and even if people don’t laugh, they’ll be aware you gave it a go.

At the other end you have more subversive humour. Language that doesn’t include any actual jokes, but is delivered in a subtle, sarcastic way that only appeals to people with the intelligence to understand it. I like to think I sit nearer the Stewart Lee end myself, but in reality I’m more Dick and Dom.

Step 2 - Who’s meant to be laughing?

Before writing any copy, it’s important to understand who it’s for. This is even more important when you’re trying to make someone laugh. Imagine putting Al Murray’s audience in front of The Mighty Boosh - the two worlds wouldn’t click, and you’d be left with a lot of confused, middle-aged men covered in glitter.

Figure out who your target audience is and pitch the lols accordingly. Sometimes the only person you really need to make laugh is your client, in which case it never hurts to have a quick stalk of their social media. You’ll find all sorts of dark secrets there.

Step 3 - Test it

Fun Ash Billinghay fact: The reason I first got a Twitter account was to see if I could make people laugh with words. It turns out I can, but only once every 29,700 tweets.

Testing your copy will make it much easier to get it right in the future. Write a few lines with the funny dialled up and down, and see which one gets the right reaction. If your more irreverent, off-the-wall stuff doesn’t land, maybe your dad humour will. If none of it works, maybe funny isn’t for them, or maybe you should scroll down to my next tip…

What if you’re just not a very funny writer?

We all have our different skills, and not everyone’s is being funny. Even if you’re a hoot in the flesh, putting that down on words can be a challenge, and if you get it wrong it can make your audience’s skin crawl.

Sometimes it’s good just to accept defeat and get someone else to do it for you.

Take the time I was asked to write some copy for a fast fashion brand aimed at teenage girls. Now, even when I was a teenage boy, this was a target audience I never knew how to talk to. This hasn’t changed, and despite my best efforts, it still ended up sounding forced. I passed on the responsibilities to the very talented Poppy Booth, who once was a teenage girl herself, which made the whole process much easier.

If funny just isn’t your thing, and my fail-safe formula has actually failed, then it’s no shame to hand the brief over to someone else. They might repay the favour one day.

Hopefully that’s given you a good start in the world of lol-worthy writing. Give it a go, and if no-one gets it, never forget that they’re the problem and not you.