- 88% of people are looking for new experiences to make them
smile and laugh
- 91% of people prefer brands to be funny and 72% would choose a
brand that uses humor over the competition
- 95% of business leaders fear using humor in customer
interactions
AUSTIN,
Texas, June 15, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- People want
brands to make them smile and laugh, but business leaders fear
using humor 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 humor 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 percent of people have not felt true happiness for more than
two years and 25 percent don't know, or have forgotten, what it
means to feel truly happy.
- 88 percent are looking for new experiences to make them smile
and laugh. People are prioritizing health (80 percent), personal
connections (79 percent), and experiences (53 percent) to gain
happiness.
- More than half (53 percent) wish money could buy happiness,
with 78 percent willing to pay a premium for true happiness.
- 89 percent attempted to find happiness in online shopping
during the pandemic and while 47 percent said that receiving
packages made them happy, 12 percent 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
humor to engage with customers.
- 78 percent of people believe brands can do more to deliver
happiness to their customers and 91 percent said they preferred
brands to be funny; this number increased among Gen Z (94 percent)
and Millennials (94 percent).
- 90 percent are more likely to remember ads that are funny, yet
business leaders said that only 20 percent of their brands' offline
ads (TV, billboards) and 18 percent of their online ads actively
use humor.
- 77 percent of people are more likely to buy from a salesperson
that is funny, yet only 16 percent of business leaders said that
their brands use humor to sell.
- 75 percent of people would follow a brand if it's funny on its
social media channels, yet only 15 percent of business leaders said
their brand is humorous on social.
- 69 percent of people would open an email from a brand if the
subject line were funnier, yet only 24 percent of business leaders
said they actively use humor in email marketing campaigns.
- 68 percent would prefer to engage with a chatbot/digital
assistant that is funny, yet only 27 percent of business leaders
said their brands actively incorporate humor into bot
communications.
Smiles and laughter pay dividends, but business leaders are
afraid to joke around
People will reward brands that
embrace humor with loyalty, advocacy, and repeat purchases and will
walk away from those that don't.
- 48 percent of people don't believe they have a relationship
with a brand unless it makes them smile or laugh and 41 percent
would walk away from a brand if it didn't make them laugh or smile
regularly.
- If a brand uses humor, people are more likely to buy from the
brand again (80 percent), recommend the brand to family and friends
(80 percent), choose the brand over the competition (72 percent),
and spend more with a brand (63 percent).
- 89 percent of business leaders see the opportunity to use humor
to enhance the customer experience and believe that their brand can
do more to make customers laugh or smile.
- 95 percent of business leaders fear using humor in customer
interactions.
- 85 percent of business leaders state that they do not have the
data insights or tools to successfully deliver humor. Business
leaders would be more confident using humor when engaging with
customers if they had better customer visibility (55 percent) and
access to advanced technologies like artificial intelligence (32
percent).
Supporting Quotes
"We've all been through some very
tough years, and around the world, we're short on happiness. We're
starved for experiences that make us smile and laugh, and brands
can help," said Gretchen Rubin,
five-time New York
Times bestselling author and podcaster. "For brands
aiming to contribute to the happiness of their target audience, the
process starts with data and knowing your customers. Only then can
you bring the appropriate mix of humor, personality, and brand
experience that will drive loyalty and brand advocacy."
"The customer experience continues to evolve, but at the end of
the day, it all comes down to one thing: Making the
customer happy," said Rob
Tarkoff, executive vice president and general manager,
Oracle Fusion Cloud Customer Experience (CX). "There are many
different factors that go into creating happy customers and in this
research, we decided to examine humor as it is one of the most
nuanced. As the results show, most business leaders want to make
consumers laugh more and understand it's a critical part of
establishing a true relationship. To be successful, brands need to
put data at the heart of their customer experience strategy."
Learn more about this global report here.
Methodology
Research findings are based on a survey
conducted by Savanta, Inc. across the
United States, the United
Kingdom, the United Arab
Emirates, France,
Germany, Italy, Japan,
China, Singapore, India, Australia, Mexico, Brazil, and Columbia between January 3-27, 2022. For this survey, 12,183
consumers, including 3,125 business leaders across marketing, sales
and customer service, were asked general questions about the impact
of the pandemic on happiness and openness to seeing an emotion like
humor inserted into advertising, marketing, sales and customer
service activities as part of the overall customer experience. The
report targeted consumers and full-time business leaders 21 years
of age or older. Respondents were recruited through a number of
different mechanisms, via different sources to join the panels and
participate in market research surveys. All panelists have passed a
double opt-in process and complete on average 300 profiling data
points prior to taking part in surveys. Respondents are invited to
take part via email and are provided with a small monetary
incentive for doing so. Results of any sample are subject to
sampling variation. The magnitude of the variation is measurable
and is affected by the number of interviews and the level of the
percentages expressing the results. In this report, the chances are
95 in 100 that a survey result does not vary, plus or minus, by
more than 0.9 percentage points from the result that would be
obtained if interviews had been conducted with all persons in the
universe represented by the sample.
About Oracle
Oracle offers suites of integrated
applications plus secure, autonomous infrastructure in the Oracle
Cloud. For more information about Oracle (NYSE: ORCL), please visit
us at oracle.com.
Trademarks
Oracle, Java, and MySQL are registered
trademarks of Oracle Corporation.
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