Laughter is the best medicine, so the old saying goes – but brands operating in the healthcare space have often been reticent to use humour when communicating with consumers. It makes sense – no one wants to make light of the suffering of others, particularly when you’re a brand trying to persuade patients to give your product a try.

Things have been changing, however. After years of decline in the use of humour across advertising, 2024 marks the debut of the Humour category at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. Works seeking to win in this category should “use wit and satire to provide amusement and create memorable, laughter-inducing connections with audiences”, according to the festival website.

So how can healthcare and pharmaceutical brands capitalise on humour to strike a chord with their target consumers? Let’s look at some examples.

Mucinex: Mr. Mucus (2004-present)

Humorous mascots have been part of the marketing landscape for a long time, but it’s only a select few that have enjoyed as successful a stint as US brand Mucinex’s Mr. Mucus. Making his debut in 2004, Mr. Mucus is just what he sounds like: a giant, anthropomorphised ball of green snot that lives to rain misery on the lives of those afflicted by colds and flu, only to be thwarted by the expectorant powers of Mucinex.

Since his beginnings as the star of print and TV campaigns primarily, over the years Mr. Mucus has fully embraced the changing media landscape. In 2017, motion-capture technology was used to allow the character to engage with passengers at New York’s JFK airport in real time, with the resulting interactions shared on social media. As of 2024, Mr. Mucus has an active social media presence, with Mucinex maintaining separate accounts across platforms for both the Mucinex Masterbrand and @mrmucusofficial. Where the Masterbrand content feels very much like familiar territory – copy and imagery reinforcing product range and efficacy – Mr. Mucus’ online spaces allow Mucinex to personify effectively the problem the brand purports to solve. Mr. Mucus is quite literally slimy and irritating – making it all the more satisfying when we get to crush him with a gigantic AI-generated object of our choice at mucusmasher.com.

Why it works: colds and flu are unpleasant, but for most people they’re not too serious and can be managed using OTC products. OTC healthcare brands have considerable licence to use humour in their communications in comparison with prescription medication brands, but the reason Mr. Mucus works so well is he brings to life the irritation and discomfort caused by colds and flu – and the satisfaction that comes from conquering them.

Shingrix: Shingles Doesn’t Care (2022-present)

GSK’s Shingrix is a vaccine that protects people over 50 from developing shingles, a painful disease caused by the same virus responsible for chickenpox. In 2022, GSK produced a comms campaign seeking to educate US consumers on Shingles and its potentially debilitating effects. The TVCs represent the suffering caused by the disease through powerful visual metaphors – piercing metal corkscrews, a human figure made of paper set on fire from within. It’s dark and threatening, establishing Shingles as a threat to be avoided at all costs.

GSK’s campaign for the Shingrix vaccine itself, however, has a very different flavour. It’s irreverent, it’s light-hearted. Where the Shingles of the 2022 awareness campaign is an insidious adversary, hiding away inside the body to leap out when its victim least suspects it, in the 2024 Shingrix campaign it’s out in the open. It’s still annoying for sure – represented here as a great cartoonish mass of hewn stone letters that fall from the sky to ruin a person’s day – but it’s altogether less threatening.

Why it works: the shift from pathos to humour allows the brand to position patients in a more active role in managing their care, with Shingrix framed as helping individuals carry on with the everyday things they know and love.

Viagra Connect: Home Office (2023)

The 2023 European campaign for OTC Viagra Connect builds on cultural observations (the increased prevalence of hybrid working) to present a humorous take on the advantages of the product. The TVC takes place during the day, featuring a woman sitting at her laptop, smartly turned out and ready for video calls. Behind her, her male partner is doing housework, taking a moment to gesture suggestively with the hose of the vacuum cleaner. The woman closes the lid of her laptop, and when she opens it again, she is noticeably dishevelled, hair and clothes clearly askew after a brief sexual encounter.

Why it works: Where previous Viagra comms have focused on intense emotional disconnection, or alternatively used humour in a very overt manner (a happy male user dancing through a house strewn with discarded clothing), this campaign is more subtle. With its familiar setup and impromptu ‘quickie’ scenario, Viagra Connect is framed not as a daunting last resort but as a facilitator of everyday moments of intimacy. Crucially, the relationship we are shown is a partnership – while Viagra Connect itself is taken by the male, the experience of his female partner is clearly centred.

3 Key Takeouts for Brands

While the OTC space offers clear opportunities for healthcare brands seeking to use humour in their communications, humour can also be a powerful tool prescription pharmaceutical brands. When used thoughtfully, many healthcare brands can create more engaging, memorable, and effective communications that resonate with their target audiences. Here are three key takeaways to think about when trying to use humour:

  1. Personify the Problem: Mucinex’s Mr. Mucus effectively personifies the discomfort and irritation caused by colds and flu. By creating a humorous, relatable character, Mucinex makes the process of overcoming these common ailments more engaging and satisfying for consumers. With humour grounded in relatable experiences with colds and flu, the brand is made approachable and memorable without trivialising the issue.

  2. Shift from Pathos to Humour: GSK’s Shingrix campaign moved from dark, threatening visuals in their 2022 Shingles awareness campaign to a more light-hearted approach in 2024. By representing shingles as a cartoonish mass ruining a person’s day, the campaign makes the condition less intimidating and positions the vaccine as a proactive choice for maintaining one’s quality of life. This approach empowers consumers by framing them as active participants in their healthcare decisions, making the message more positive and actionable.

  3. Integrate Humour into Relatable Scenarios: Viagra Connect’s 2023 campaign utilises a humorous, everyday scenario of hybrid working to subtly highlight the product’s benefits. The suggestive yet tasteful humour focuses on the product’s capacity for enhancing everyday intimacy rather than as a last resort for a physical problem. By placing humour in a familiar context, the campaign makes the product seem like a natural part of daily life, reducing stigma and making it more appealing to a broader audience.

Emily Porter-Salmon, Director

The Best Medicine?: Humour in the healthcare space