Tom Yorton is CEO of Second City Communications, the corporate services division of the world famous comedy theater company, The Second City. He will be leading a lunch time discussion on humor, social media and marketing at PR+MKTG Camp Chicago on June 8th.

Yorton has particular expertise at the intersection of marketing, communications, change management, and corporate training. His role at The Second City has been to evolve and grow Second City Communications into the largest and most diverse corporate comedy and improvisational training entity in the world.

Why is humor so effective for connecting for connecting with people?

Tom: Things are funny when they’re true, or grounded in some aspect of the truth. Think about it: Most of the things you find funny are connected to something that’s real – an experience or something someone did or said. When we laugh at something together, it’s laughter of shared recognition.

At Second City, we  use humor to reflect shared truths and connect to people’s lives — making them laugh, and making them think.

So what’s the trick to using humor to market products and services?

Tom: Well, first – leave it to the professionals! Just kidding…

Seriously, the main challenge is to reach people with fresh, relevant content that connects with people. In our world of improvisation, scenes and characters are grounded in reality and the funny is about holding a mirror up to the situation.

The same works well in using humor to market products and services — but you have toknow your audience. This isn’t just putting messages out there that are funny to the world at large – they have to be funny to the people or groups you’re targeting. So, as in all marketing but particularly when using humor: You have to know your audience, and you must know what’s true for them – what’s unique for them in that category.

Also, I’m not talking about branded or sponsored entertainment. We do funny with apoint – humor geared to delivering strong messages and promoting brands — making a brand more accessible, more real to people.

Second City is great at satirizing conventions and taking on holy grails, which noteveryone is set up to do or has experiencing with doing. We can call out the truth in unconventional ways – taking on what’s known and reflecting that back to audiences in a unique way that connects with them and taps into what their experiences are or have been.

You talk about how “dialogs beat monologues” — can you elaborate, and say how it’s powerful for reaching audiences through social media?

Tom: In our 50 year history, we’ve learned that it pays to co-create material with an audience. When we do, audiences have a greater stake in the outcome, and we can create comedy that is genuine and authentic.

That sensibility and approach is a perfect match for social media.  We think of the content we develop in social media campaigns as the stimulus that readily provokes a response, and we can then build on that response in ways that develop things further and create a dialog with the audience. Short-form content has an energy about it, and it gets people to think quickly and either contribute or engage with the brand in some manner.

To recap, what tips would you give PR and marketing professionals looking to use humor to engage customers?

Tom: Shorter is always better, leaving them asking for more. A lot of times you will see online gags that run too long when something could be cut in half and be a lot funnier. Audiences are smarter and quicker than you might think, and you don’t need to beat them over the head.

2. Problems are funnier than solutions.  Sometimes brands and marketers want to extol the virtues of their product or service, but if you get too much into that it can be a real burden on the message at least as it relates to the comedy side of things.  We like to use the “funny” to tee up or identify the challenge, problem or the current condition and then find a way to get people to the solution.

3. Understand what is true to the audience. This is not a new idea. It is central to any kind of marketing – understanding who your target is – but a lot of times things are funny because they are ring true.  What we are really trying to do is understand what is authentic, what’s genuine to the audience and then come at it from their point of view and hold a mirror up to the situation in a way that the audience can recognize.

Originally published on prmktgcamp.com