Why Funny Ecommerce Ads Get Shared (And Most Product Demos Don’t)
Open Instagram, TikTok, or Facebook and start scrolling.
Within a few seconds you'll probably see a product demo, a founder talking to the camera, an unboxing video, or a creator explaining why they were "skeptical at first" but now can't live without a product.
“OMG this edible whiteboard changed my life!” Ok honey, keep snacking on that…
The problem isn’t that these formats don’t work. The problem is that everyone is using them.
After a while, the feed starts to feel like content-vomit of slightly different versions of the same ad. Viewers have seen the format before, know where it's going, and make a decision almost instantly about whether it's worth their attention.
Funny content works differently.
A character says something unexpected. A conversation takes a turn nobody saw coming. Instead of immediately understanding what they're watching, viewers pause because they want to figure it out.
And when the viewer becomes part of the joke, you don’t just have them hooked on the ad.
You’ve got them hooked on your brand.
Meanwhile, in a comic book store…
One of our best examples came from a Southern Sophisticates video filmed in a comic store:
Savannah asks Sterling what Demon Slayer is.
Without missing a beat, he replies, "I believe that's where a demon lives."
Moments later, he mistakes a Demon Slayer poster for a religious display.
"Alright," he says, "this is a good religious bookshop."
People weren't watching because they cared about Demon Slayer. They were watching to hear what Sterling would say next.
That's the advantage comedy has over traditional ad formats. It creates curiosity before it asks for attention.
Why Funny Brands Get Remembered
Stopping the scroll is only half the job.
The brands people remember give audiences something worth repeating.
We've seen this firsthand with the Southern Sophisticates series. Instead of simply reacting to the videos, viewers started continuing the joke themselves.
People quoted Sterling's lines back and forth. They asked for full episodes, suggested new series for the cast to explore, and even requested entirely new content built around the same characters.
At a certain point, the comments stopped feeling like responses and started feeling like participation.
That's one reason recurring characters work so well. Viewers already know the personalities, understand the joke, and want to see what happens next.
Why Most Ecommerce Ads Look the Same
This isn't just something we've seen in our own content.
of campaigns receiving more than $1 million in spend used humorous creative, according to Motion.
Motion analyzed more than $100 million in DTC ad spend and found that humorous ads accounted for 25% of campaigns receiving more than $1 million in spend, despite representing only 14% of the creative analyzed.
In other words, comedy was a relatively small share of total creative, but it appeared disproportionately in the campaigns receiving the largest budgets. According to the Motion DTC Report covered by Net Influencer, the brands spending the most on advertising were more likely to invest in humorous creative.
The takeaway is simple: not many brands are creating comedy-driven content, but the ones that do often see outsized results.
A separate analysis of more than 10,000 DTC Meta ads found that nearly every long-running ad fit into one of twelve common creative structures.
Product demos. UGC testimonials. Founder videos. Problem-solution ads.
Those formats work, but they rarely surprise anyone. As VibeMyAd's analysis of 10,000 DTC Meta ads showed, most brands are pulling from the same small set of creative approaches.
That's what makes comedy interesting. It doesn't always feel like an ad. When people are trying to figure out what's happening or where a joke is going, they're paying attention for a different reason than they would during a traditional product pitch.
And in a feed full of familiar formats, that difference matters.
One pattern we've noticed across dozens of shoots is that people rarely remember the product first. They remember the moment that made them laugh. The product becomes part of a story instead of the entire story.
What This Means for Your Brand
A lot of brands treat entertainment and performance as separate things.
We've found they're often connected.
When people enjoy a piece of content, they're more likely to watch it, remember it, and share it with someone else.
The brands standing out right now aren't necessarily creating more content. They're creating content people actually remember.
We've seen this especially with brands that have spent years relying on the same UGC and creator-style formats. The issue isn't a lack of content. It's that audiences have seen the same approach over and over again.
Sometimes the biggest opportunity isn't making more content.
It's making something your audience hasn't already scrolled past a thousand times.
Funny content does not replace product marketing. It gives people a reason to care before the product ever enters the conversation.