Do puns have a place in your content?

The danger of sounding unprofessional

In an increasingly busy marketplace, it can be refreshing to raise a smile or even a laugh from our audience in marketing communications. But before you eagerly explore pun potential when diving into a new copywriting brief, it’s very important to begin by considering the cultural context.

For instance, if you’re writing about a serious issue for a healthcare organisation, you should steer clear of using puns as they could trivialise your message. Unfortunately for everyone, the Coronavirus pandemic has given way to a variety of tasteless puns along the lines of ‘going viral’ and ‘quaran-team’. Not only are the jokes themselves pretty tiresome, but they also run the risk of sounding callous to some. Best avoided.

Make sure it’s easy to understand

If your audience needs to work to understand your pun or the meaning behind it, then it’s time to bin it. Puns should be nice and simple, adding a light touch of humour to your copywriting that ultimately raises a smile from your reader.

The beauty of a good pun is that it’s also no longer than a few words. So if you’ve wound up with a fairly long and wordy sentence then it’s probably not going to work. Keep it short. And keep it snappy.

Be original

Nothing makes people eye-roll quite like an over-used dad joke. And the sad case for so many puns is that we’ve seen them a thousand times before. This is why it’s important to strive for originality in your wordplay.

A great example of a brand who has executed originality in wordplay perfectly is Just Eat (see example below).

A well-timed and original pun can add warmth to your content and instantly grab your reader’s attention. It can also make your brand seem more approachable and human, and therefore more memorable to your audience too.

We offer a range of copywriting services at Eleven, from helping you create messaging structures to copyediting and proofreading. Whatever you’re looking for, get in touch with a member of our team and we’d love to discuss the ways we can work together.