88 per cent of people are looking for new experiences to make them smile and laugh.
People want brands to make them smile and laugh, but business leaders fear using humour in customer interactions according to a new research report from Oracle Fusion Cloud Customer Experience (CX) and Gretchen Rubin, five-time New York Times bestselling author and podcaster. The Happiness Report includes insights from more than 12,000 consumers and business leaders across 14 countries and found that people are searching for new experiences to make them smile and laugh and will reward brands that embrace humour with loyalty, advocacy, and repeat purchases, and walk away from those that don’t.
People are searching for happiness in new ways and are willing to pay a premium
It has been more than two years since many people last felt true happiness and they are searching for ways to be happy again, no matter the cost.
- 45 per cent of people have not felt true happiness for more than two years and 25 per cent don’t know, or have forgotten, what it means to feel truly happy.
- 88 per cent are looking for new experiences to make them smile and laugh. People are prioritizing health (80 per cent), personal connections (79 per cent), and experiences (53 per cent) to gain happiness.
- More than half (53 per cent) wish money could buy happiness, with 78 per cent willing to pay a premium for true happiness.
- 89 per cent attempted to find happiness in online shopping during the pandemic and while 47 per cent said that receiving packages made them happy, 12 per cent struggled to remember the purchases they had made online.
Advertising, marketing, sales, and customer service interactions need to change
People want brands to make them smile and laugh, but business leaders admit their brands rarely use humour to engage with customers.
- 78 per cent of people believe brands can do more to deliver happiness to their customers and 91 per cent said they preferred brands to be funny; this number increased among Gen Z (94 per cent) and Millennials (94 per cent).
- 90 per cent are more likely to remember ads that are funny, yet business leaders said that only 20 per cent of their brands’ offline ads (TV, billboards) and 18 per cent of their online ads actively use humour.
- 77 per cent of people are more likely to buy from a salesperson that is funny, yet only 16 per cent of business leaders said that their brands use humour to sell.
- 75 per cent of people would follow a brand if it’s funny on its social media channels, yet only 15 per cent of business leaders said their brand is humorous on social.
- 69 per cent of people would open an email from a brand if the subject line were funnier, yet only 24 per cent of business leaders said they actively use humour in email marketing campaigns.
- 68 per cent would prefer to engage with a chatbot/digital assistant that is funny, yet only 27 per cent of business leaders said their brands actively incorporate humour into bot communications.
Smiles and laughter pay dividends, but business leaders are afraid to joke around
People will reward brands that embrace humour with loyalty, advocacy, and repeat purchases and will walk away from those that don’t.
- 48 per cent of people don’t believe they have a relationship with a brand unless it makes them smile or laugh and 41 per cent would walk away from a brand if it didn’t make them laugh or smile regularly.
- If a brand uses humour, people are more likely to buy from the brand again (80 per cent), recommend the brand to family and friends (80 per cent), choose the brand over the competition (72 per cent), and spend more with a brand (63 per cent).
- 89 per cent of business leaders see the opportunity to use humour to enhance the customer experience and believe that their brand can do more to make customers laugh or smile.
- 95 per cent of business leaders fear using humour in customer interactions.
- 85 per cent of business leaders state that they do not have the data insights or tools to successfully deliver humour. Business leaders would be more confident using humour when engaging with customers if they had better customer visibility (55 per cent) and access to advanced technologies like artificial intelligence (32 per cent).
