Snapchat published a report examining how younger audiences connect through humor and what comedy is worth in marketing promotions. It may be the first serious attempt by a platform to break humor in marketing down to the level of craft.
Humor drives engagement across every age group, but this study focuses specifically on what registers as funny within younger subsets. As Snapchat put it: "What's 67? What's aura farming? What's unc? To the older generations, young people's humor can feel difficult to decode. Yet beneath the memes, inside jokes, and absurd internet trends is something much bigger: a generation using humor as one of its primary social languages."
Snapchat partnered with Omnicom to survey more than 6,000 social media users aged 13 to 28 in the U.S., U.K., Canada, France, Germany and India. The report aims to give brands context on what young people respond to and how to use it in outreach.
Response data showed younger audiences actively want brands to lean into humor in promotions. The catch is that those attempts frequently fall flat — which is why the report tries to contextualize what is funny to this audience and even offers a basic structure for comedy writing.
This is likely the first time a social platform has tried to break down the mechanics of being funny for a specific audience. The limitation is equally clear: creative work and genuinely humorous writing cannot be commodified to that degree. Brands need real audience understanding, and marketers need natural ability plus self-awareness to land a comedy idea that resonates.
Put simply, Snapchat cannot teach a brand to be funny. But with these notes, more marketers may be able to work with current comedic trends and behaviors and build campaigns that align better with what younger users actually respond to.
Humor campaigns usually fail at one of two points. The brand borrows the format of a meme without its context — slang inserted into copy by someone who does not know why it is funny. Or the humor has no relationship to the brand's voice, so even if the joke lands, nothing explains why this brand is telling it.
Use the report, but add one internal check before shipping: have someone in the target age range read the draft and confirm it feels written by a person who is actually in on the joke. Snapchat is also a hard platform to research, with no public trends tool — see Four Steps for Snapchat Marketing: Researching a Platform With No Public Trends Tool. For the platform's parallel push toward human-made content, see Snapchat Stops Recommending AI Slop.
With Omnicom, surveying more than 6,000 social media users aged 13 to 28 across the U.S., U.K., Canada, France, Germany and India.
Yes — response data showed they are keen to see brands lean into humor in promotions, though brand attempts often fall flat.
No. Creative comedic writing does not commodify that far; it still requires genuine audience understanding plus the marketer's own instinct and self-awareness.
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