When you believe you’ve seen it all, Skittles releases a brand-new wacky, weird, and hilarious commercial. Due to how unique and peculiar it is in comparison to other commercials, this kind of advertisement would stand out and make you enjoy the brand even more. This appears to be an obvious instance of something that we remember just because it is weird.
And when there’s a brand with wacky adverts like Skittles that talks about tasting the rainbow, it’s obvious that I had to write an article about it, because all unicorns love Skittles!
“Taste the Rainbow” has been a marketing catchphrase for the multicoloured candy Skittles since 1994, but in the early 2000s, it started to undergo some intriguing alterations. Since then, more than 40 different TV commercials that play with the slogan have aired, and we’re ready to bet that you can name at least a few of them. Skittles makes incredibly memorable commercials that help build brand recognition by using its catchphrase, “Taste the Rainbow,” in unexpected ways.
Why we remember weird and funny best?
Let’s be honest, most of us don’t like commercials interrupting our entertainment, naturally, the dull commercials are rarely discussed, but the absurd ones that made us chuckle will certainly start some discussion.
It makes perfect sense that habits are what control 95% of our behaviour once you consider that the average individual makes 35,000 decisions per day. If not, trying to decide what to do next would paralyse us in trying to choose what to do next.
In fact, it’s unlikely that we still recall the uninteresting commercials from the day before. This is because of cognitive biases known as the comedy and von Restroff effects, which make it easier to retain information when humour or something unusual is present.
According to studies, ads that use humour usually have a positive effect in terms of viewer attention. This has implications for memory as well, as, in order to remember something, we must attend to it first. Simply put, we pay more attention to things that are funny and therefore remember them better.
Humour not only makes us remember what we see in a commercial, but it also makes us enjoy the brand more. While we are focusing on humour, we are not focusing on negative emotions since working memory has a limited capacity. Processing humor requires our working memory, the section of our mind that processes information. We are trained to view the brand positively since comedy is viewed favourably by us. Both consciously and unconsciously. This can be explained by our propensity to categorise information, which is the brain’s innate capacity to classify information into groups.
In a nutshell, always try to include some humour, the more weird the better, into your work, whether you’re a major marketer or just attempting to promote your neighbourhood bake sale. Stay weird, stay different!
Where’s your will to be weird?
Jim Morrison
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
The Cinematic Canvas
