Humour and irony boost sales by a gazillion percent

Well maybe not, but i think these two post from eConsultancy and BazaarVoice make some really intersting points about the role CGH (Consumer generated humour - yes, finally, my own acronym!!) can play in sales.

now go out and buy a really crappy shirt because we all love taking the piss... http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000NZW3IY






Thanks Econsultancy -http://econsultancy.com/blog/3876-ironic-user-reviews-boost-t-shirt-sales-by-2300
User reviews come in many shapes and sizes, but typically people either love or hate a product. It’s normally a simple black and white issue, as few people bother to leave reviews for mediocre products.

It turns out that this either/or thinking is plain wrong, and there is a third factor to consider: irony. And tongue in cheek reviews stand a better chance of going viral, at least judging by the success of the Three Wolf Moon T-shirt.

The t-shirt, which features three wolves and one moon, has become one of the top sellers on Amazon, thanks to some classic one-liners and other more detailed reviews, with most written with an industrial-sized dose of irony.

Here are a few of my favourites (there are 455 to choose from):

• "Unfortunately I already had this exact picture tattooed on my chest, but this shirt is very useful in colder weather."
• "Every night, for the past 6 weeks, I have been visited by 3 wolf sprirts. And every night, they bestow upon me endless amounts of knowledge and offerings of imitation crab meat."
• "The Three Wolf Moon T-Shirt gave me a +10 resistance to energy attacks, +8 Strength, and added 30 feet to my normal leap. I cannot list the specific effects involving the opposite sex as I am still discovering these. And they are many."
• "I had a two-wolf shirt for a while and I didn't think life could get any better. I was wrong. Life got 50% better, no lie."
• "The second that these 3 Wolves touched my chest I benchpressed 5 meth labs and wrote an essay about moonlight. When I wear this shirt as pants I can run to Canada in only 42 days."
• "I once ran into Chuck Norris at a bar. He noticed I was wearing this shirt and he ran away."

Not all reviews were positive…

• "They SAY it's three wolves, but how do we know it's not the same wolf from three different angles? We cannot assume they'd be above airbrushing or the use of creative lighting just to save on wolves..."
• "I'm beginning to believe that some of the benefits ---- as described by other reviewers ---- are exaggerated. For example, not ONE supermodel has approached me."

In response to that one-star review the company that created the t-shirt responded in kind:"We at The Mountain do not guarantee that you will become a magnet for super models. There is no governing the fate of one man to secure the kindred love of a like-minded mate for life while baying at the moon on a warm Summer's night; to the man who wears not the 3 Wolf Moon and stumbles through life on a path of loneliness of one forgotten by the mortals he walks among… we feel we deserve at least 3 stars from you."

The company did however take issue with some of the comments, saying that “We appreciate humor as much as the next company, but we don't approve of some of the Classist remarks that are being generated here… some say ‘Bad publicity is better than no publicity at all’. We however disagree if it's at the expense of others in a Classist, Racist or Prejudice manner.”

So there it is. Ironic reviews are a winner.

And there I was thinking that the rise in popularity of animal t-shirts was linked to The Flight Of The Conchords…

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“H” is for Humor

May 25th, 2009 by Brant Barton | Co-Founder and VP of Business Development

In addition to tagging reviews, questions, answers, stories and other customer-generated content with descriptive codes like “CR” for references to competitors and “CS” for customer service issues, I am starting to think that our content moderators should apply “H” to content that could dramatically boost a product’s conversion rate (because after a fit of uncontrollable laughter and the delirium that follows you simply cannot resist the urge to buy the product that is the subject of the “H”). That’s some actionable business insight for merchandising teams.

The inspiration for this post is the now infamous “Three Wolf Moon T-Shirt”, currently the #1 selling Apparel product on Amazon.com. No, that’s not a typo. I could efficiently end this post by just telling you to read a few of the reviews for this product. That would more than accomplish my goal of demonstrating the value of not taking yourself (or your brand) too seriously. But I have a minimum length requirement to meet, so I’ll go on . . .

Our good friends at Econsultancy in the UK beat me to the punch with an entertaining blog postThe Washington Post published an article on the same day. No matter who you trust, that’s one damn funny t-shirt. If you trust me and took my advice above to read a few of the reviews, I bet you are now making your way through the checkout process while you finish reading this nailbiter of a post. That’s impressive multi-tasking. on the t-shirt.

We see our share of humorous reviews and many of those are just too inappropriate to post, but as reviews of the Three Wolf Moon T-Shirt aptly demonstrate, there is a very fine line between inappropriate humor and pure genius, not to mention a word of mouth marketing bonanza. I won’t speak for my colleagues at Bazaarvoice (you know who you are), but this t-shirt is responsible for a major drop in productivity last Friday because I was personally contributing to the millions of word of mouth “impressions” that the product received. While it may be difficult to put a dollar value on each of those impressions, you can most definitely put a dollar value on lost productivity.

In closing, if you offer customer reviews of your products and services, whether you are a Bazaarvoice client or not, I urge you to evaluate whether your definition of inappropriate is too strict and your tolerance of humor too low. Millions of dollars and an immeasurable wealth of customer word of mouth could be at stake!