Should You Name Your Product in a Joke, or the Category?

When you write a joke for your brand, you face a small but important choice: do you name your specific product, or joke about the whole category you are in? Both work, but they do different jobs. Naming your product speaks to your superfans and deepens that bond. Joking about the category speaks to everyone who might ever buy in your space. Pick based on the job you want that post to do.

Category jokes reach more people

If your goal is the widest possible reach, joke about the category, not your brand. A joke about "when the coffee shop runs out of coffee" is true for almost everyone. A joke about running out of one specific brand's signature drink is only true for that brand's fans.

The broader you go, the more people the joke is true for, and the more people can see themselves in it. Category-level humour is relatable to a much bigger slice of the market, so it tends to earn more engagement and pull in people who have never even considered you yet. When you want to grow, go broad.

Product jokes bond with superfans

Naming your own product or brand does the opposite, and that is not a bad thing. It narrows the joke to the people who already know and love what you sell, which limits reach but deepens the relationship with the fans you already have.

For your superfans, a joke that name-checks the exact thing they love feels like an inside nod, a wink that says "this one is for you". It rewards loyalty and makes your most valuable customers feel seen. The reach is smaller, but the connection is stronger, and sometimes that is precisely what you want.

Choose by the job of the post

So there is no universally right answer, only the right answer for what a given post is meant to achieve. Ask yourself what this particular post is for.

If it is meant to attract new potential customers and travel far, joke about the category so it is true for as many people as possible. If it is meant to delight and reward the fans you already have, name your product and let them enjoy the insider moment. Match the choice to the goal, and both kinds of joke earn their place.

Meet Brian

Knowing when to joke about your category and when to name your product, so each post does its job, is exactly what Brian is for. He is our AI-powered comedy marketing machine, built to write the right joke for the moment.

Take Brian for a spin and get the balance right.