Humour appears to play a significant role in how India’s younger consumers engage with brands, with 91% of India’s Next Gen saying they pay closer attention to brands that are funny, according to a new study by Omnicom Advertising and Snapchat.
Titled How to Laugh (and Win) with the Next Generation, the global study looks at how Gen Z and Gen Alpha use humour to build relationships, signal belonging, navigate culture and decide which brands earn their attention.
According to the India findings, 87% of Next Gen consumers say humour is how their generation talks about serious things, while 90% say it helps them express things they otherwise would not say directly.
The commercial impact of humour also comes through in the findings. Among India’s Next Gen, 91% say they pay closer attention to funny brands, 88% are more likely to consider buying from one and 93% say they go on to tell others about it. The study also finds that Next Gen consumers actively like brands that are willing to make fun of themselves.
At the same time, the findings point to a gap between the humour brands attempt and what younger consumers find genuinely funny. Four in five respondents say brands online feel like older people trying to joke with them, suggesting that humour perceived as forced or culturally out of touch can affect how brands are received.
The study presents a ‘Zoomer Humour Playbook’ for marketers, built around four tenets: learning to read the room, building your joke, finding your moment and winning on Snapchat.
The findings point to the importance of cultural fluency when brands use humour to engage younger consumers. Understanding what India’s Next Gen finds funny and why could influence brand consideration beyond individual campaign pushes, according to the study.
Speaking on the report and its India findings, S. Subramanyeswar (Subbu), Chief Strategy Officer – India & Chief Knowledge Officer – Asia, Omnicom Advertising said, “Humour has always been one of culture’s most powerful forms of social currency. What is changing is its speed, its codes and who gets to define what is funny. For India’s Next Gen, humour is far more than entertainment. It is a language of belonging, intimacy and even truth. That creates an enormous opportunity for brands, but also a new standard. You cannot manufacture your way into the joke. You have to understand the culture that created it. The brands that do will not merely make people laugh. They will earn the right to be part of the conversation.”
For the study, Omnicom Advertising and Snapchat surveyed more than 6,000 social media users aged 13–28 across the US, UK, Canada, France, Germany and India. The research examined how Gen Z and Gen Alpha define modern humour, how it spreads, when it becomes ‘cringe’ and how brands can participate.
The online quantitative survey covered 6,028 daily social platform users, with approximately 1,000 respondents per country, including 3,593 daily Snapchatters and a minimum of 500 per country. The sample comprised a mix of ages and genders and was representative of social app users within each country.
