The rise of absurdist humour in advertising: creative strategy or strategic crutch?
By
Tom May
3mo ago· 5 min readenInsight
65/100
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Summary
The article examines the growing trend of absurdist humour in mainstream advertising, using Domino's new campaign as a case study. It traces the evolution from Old Spice's surreal non-sequiturs to Compare the Market's meerkats and Surreal cereal's deadpan copy. The piece questions whether this reliance on strangeness is a creative strategy or a substitute for genuine strategic thinking, while also considering whether absurdism might actually be an effective response to a fragmented, attention-scarce media landscape.
Key quotes
· 3 pulledAbsurdism—proper, committed, logic-free absurdism—has quietly become the default register for a significant portion of mainstream creative work.
Old Spice showed that a man on a horse delivering non-sequiturs could shift product faster than any rational benefit claim.
But is the industry leaning on strangeness as a substitute for strategy... or...
A charging buffalo, a somersaulting samurai cat and a ghostly flame-throwing organist walk into a living room. Funny, yes. But is the industry leaning on strangeness as a substitute for strategy... or...
