notes from the writers’ room
The blog
Ideas on comedy, attention and marketing that doesn’t feel like marketing - 216 posts and counting.
Please, Not Like This
We have all seen the LinkedIn posts that make you physically cringe. Here is the real difference between the content everyone scrolls past and the content that stops them.
19 November 2025 · 2 min read
The Gorilla That Saved Cadbury
In 2007 Cadbury put a gorilla behind a drum kit for 90 seconds and said almost nothing about chocolate. It worked. Here is why one funny moment is enough.
29 October 2025 · 3 min read
Why the Algorithm Hates Your Content (and What to Do About It)
My 4-year-old nephew judges food by whether it is dinosaur-shaped. Somehow he also runs the social media algorithms. Here is what he taught me about getting seen.
8 October 2025 · 3 min read
Why Netflix Killed Blockbuster (and What It Means for Your Marketing)
Blockbuster had every film ever made, perfectly organised. Netflix had a fraction of the selection and made you wait days for a DVD. People chose Netflix anyway. Here is the reason, and what it means for your content.
18 September 2025 · 3 min read
Remember When Getting Lost Was Just Part of Driving?
A crumpled paper map, my dad's unshakeable confidence, and three hours parked on a country road. Getting lost used to be part of driving. Here is why comedy marketing feels exactly the same right now.
21 August 2025 · 3 min read
The Accountant Who Went Viral
A guy in a polo shirt explaining why you should not use TurboTax got 2.3 million views. He did not try to make accounting funny. He did something far smarter, and it works for even the most boring business.
31 July 2025 · 3 min read
The IKEA Test (and Why Most People Fail It)
You know that moment when you open an IKEA box and find your beautiful bookshelf in 47 pieces? That is exactly how most business owners feel about using comedy in their marketing.
18 July 2025 · 2 min read
Why People Ignore Your Social Media (The Museum Test)
The average visitor to the Met spends just 17 seconds looking at each masterpiece. Your social media posts get even less. Here is what gives certain posts the power to stop the scroll.
4 July 2025 · 2 min read
Put Your Social Media on Autopilot (Without Sounding Like a Robot)
Social media is a complete time vampire. You are expected to post every day, on every platform, with content that stops the scroll and drives sales. Here is how to do it without losing your evenings.
23 June 2025 · 2 min read
icelandfoods – Keeping It Real with Iceland
Why we love it: The execution here isn’t 100% (our joke writers would have a thing or three to say about the flagrant disregard for comedic rhythm). However, in this comparison gag, Iceland manages to
7 July 2023 · 1 min read
Corporate Rebels – Flipping the hiring game
Why we love it: Yes, LinkedIn is a ‘professional’ environment. No, content posted there doesn’t need to be sterile and grammatically flawless. Quite the opposite – when everyone else is posting identi
7 July 2023 · 1 min read
Greggs – Apple Vision Pro
Why we love it: What does the announcement of Apple Vision Pro – an upcoming ‘mixed reality headset’ – have to do with Greggs’ baked goods? Absolutely nothing – but it had almost all of Twitter talkin
7 July 2023 · 1 min read
PC Game Pass – Extra mouse buttons
Why we love it: Xbox Game Pass pretends to have added relatable desires as additional functions that can be triggered by this mouse. Three of the desires are genuinely relatable, while the fourth isn’
7 July 2023 · 1 min read
Ryanair – “cha cha cha”
Why we love it: Ryanair are great at jumping on board a trending topic – and spinning it around so that their take on it fits perfectly into the Ryanair world. Here, they’ve taken the meme that arose
7 July 2023 · 1 min read
transempowermentproject – Things trans people say
Why we love it: We love to see our clients getting results! (Especially with the content we’ve created for them.) But even putting our heavy bias aside, at first glance this looks like a gag that only
7 July 2023 · 1 min read
Corporate Rebels – The Ageless Career Revolution
Why we love it: Brands Against Mundanity Monthly subscribers will know – we love a bar chart gag. And this is a fine example from Corporate Rebels on LinkedIn, which uses a simple punchline to make a
7 July 2023 · 1 min read
Ari Murray – Budgeting Gone Wild
Why we love it: Memes are still a relatively rare sight on LinkedIn – which is why, when they’re executed well, they have a strong chance of going viral. (In fact – we recently scored more than 1.5 mi
7 July 2023 · 1 min read
Why Monty Python Is Still Funny (But Your 2019 Memes Aren't)
A 1975 film had my wife in tears at the Black Knight. My 2019 Baby Yoda memes got a blank stare. Here is the difference between comedy that lasts and comedy that rots.
12 November 2025 · 3 min read
The 3-Hour Social Media Post (and Why I'll Never Do It Again)
I once spent three hours writing one pension-planning post. It got 14 likes. A rival's one-sentence joke got 800 comments the same week. Here is what that taught me.
22 October 2025 · 3 min read
The Goldfish Are Laughing at Us
The average goldfish has an attention span of 9 seconds. The average human? 8 seconds. We have been officially outperformed, and most business marketing is still written for the attention spans of 2003.
1 October 2025 · 3 min read
The Most Unprofessional Thing You Can Do in Business
Two competing agencies post on LinkedIn within minutes of each other. One plays it perfectly professional. The other takes a small risk. Only one of them gets remembered, and it is not the safe one.
11 September 2025 · 3 min read
The Funniest Brands on Social Media
Our running collection of the funniest brand posts on social media, each with a quick note on why it works and what you can steal from it.
12 August 2025 · 60 min read
Why Your Customers Think You're Speaking Klingon
I read a client's website copy three times just to work out that they help businesses run better. Every industry has its own secret language, and it is quietly killing your marketing.
28 July 2025 · 3 min read
The Shock and Qualify Technique
Ever notice how stand-up comedians get away with saying outrageous things? They make a shocking claim, then pull back with a qualifier. Here is how to use that same trick to stop the scroll.
16 July 2025 · 3 min read
The $300 Million Dollar Joke
Most businesses treat humour like a loaded gun. Meanwhile, Southwest Airlines built a $300 million company on jokes about oxygen masks and seatbelts. Here is what they understood that their competitors never did.
2 July 2025 · 3 min read
Dave Harland – Copywriting vs. AI
Why we love it: Copywriter Dave Harland loves poking fun at the self-proclaimed thought leaders and trend-hoppers of LinkedIn. And his audience loves him for doing it. This carousel post is a solid sa
7 July 2023 · 1 min read
Ryanair – From Ariel to Air Travel
Why we love it: In contrast to the other meme from RyanAir we’ve looked at in this issue, this one capitalises on a trending topic (the Little Mermaid remake, and the negative audience response to CGI
7 July 2023 · 1 min read
Doritos – The Sizzle of Summer
Why we love it: Posted on the official first day of summer in the Northern Hemisphere – and during a heatwave in the UK – this couldn’t have been better timed. Combine that topicality with a highly au
7 July 2023 · 1 min read
Yorkshire Tea – Biscuits Tier
Why we love it: If there are two things that are sure to provoke engagement, it’s entertainment… And controversy. Here, Yorkshire Tea combines the two – taking a popular meme format, making it relevan
7 July 2023 · 1 min read
femalequotient – words keep me awake
Why we love it: Not every joke you make needs to be about a topic that’s only relatable to your specific audience. This particular observation is so on the money, that it resonates with pretty much ev
7 July 2023 · 1 min read
Specsavers – Click Here
Why we love it: It’s not often we’ll praise a brand for not telling a joke, let alone policing jokes told by others. But we thoroughly agree with Specsavers on this one. And by delivering this importa
7 July 2023 · 1 min read
runna_coach – Expectations vs. Reality
Why we love it: Runna is a new brand on our radar, thanks to this ‘meme dump’ Instagram carousel timed to coincide with the London marathon. After all, why tell one topical brand-safe joke when you ca
7 July 2023 · 1 min read
Aldi Stores UK – The Art of Brand Beef
Why we love it: Aldi has perfected the art of brand beef on Twitter. The supermarket has previously been on the receiving end of legal action from rival M&S due to… erm… ‘similarities’ between some of
7 July 2023 · 1 min read
alexa99uk – Alexa’s Hidden Talent
Why we love it: This is comedy content creation at its laziest – letting your audience write the jokes for you. Here, Alexa UK have found funny UGC (User Generated Content) out in the wild, that speak
7 July 2023 · 1 min read
The Smoothie Company That Talks to Its Bottles
I picked an Innocent smoothie over a dozen others because it was wearing a tiny knitted hat. The drink was identical. The personality was not. Here is the lesson.
5 November 2025 · 3 min read
Why Nobody Trusts Experts Anymore
A marketing guru with 50,000 followers posted his 7 proven strategies. The comments were brutal. Here is what has quietly replaced authority, and what actually works now.
15 October 2025 · 3 min read
This Is Accelerating
Remember the 47th email that started with 'In these unprecedented times'? That was the moment we all developed Corporate BS Radar. It never switched off, and AI is about to make it stronger.
25 September 2025 · 3 min read
You Don't Need to Be Ryan Reynolds (Thank God)
A business owner told me he was not funny enough to try comedy marketing, because he is no Ryan Reynolds. Here is the all-or-nothing fallacy keeping capable people stuck in marketing mediocrity.
28 August 2025 · 3 min read
Will This Go Viral? (And Other Questions That Make Me Twitch)
On a strategy call last month, a client asked the question every marketer secretly dreads: will this go viral? Here is why it is the wrong question, and the one you should be asking instead.
8 August 2025 · 3 min read
But How Does Comedy Work for Plumbing?
A plumber from Florida asked me the question I hear from almost everyone: how does humour actually work for plumbing? The answer works for any business people assume is boring.
24 July 2025 · 3 min read
Why Gordon Ramsay's Approach to Authority Is Nonsense
If I have to watch one more leadership guru tell business owners to be more like Gordon Ramsay, I will lose my mind. Screaming at people is not authority. Here is what actually earns it.
11 July 2025 · 2 min read
Why Most Social Media Content Fails (and What Fridges Teach Us)
Nobody ever thinks about refrigerators, and that is exactly the point. The story of how fridges stopped being ugly holds the secret to why most business social media gets ignored.
26 June 2025 · 3 min read
crocs – the types of dad’s who wear crocs
Why we love it: Posted on Father’s Day, this has clear topical appeal. And while it’s not really a joke – thanks to the lo-fi meme aesthetic and the list of relatable references (i.e. Dad archetypes t
7 July 2023 · 1 min read
mountaindew – When Stock Photos Steal the Show
Why we love it: Stock photos, paired with a brand-safe Relatable Truth, combined with a dash of topicality? That’s kinda our whole thing here at White Label Comedy (at least, it’s one of our whole thi
7 July 2023 · 1 min read
Ryanair – Embracing the Solo Throne
Why we love it: The RyanAir team know that memes highlighting their audience’s Relatable Truths around holidays and flying (in this case an unexpected Small Joy) will always resonate with their audien
7 July 2023 · 1 min read
innocent – Productivity Graph
Why we love it: Innocent Smoothies takes a set of relatable truths based around the realities of work right before a bank holiday – and turns them into a gag-packed timeline that stretches across a ca
7 July 2023 · 1 min read
National Trust – Rare and Fragile
Why we love it: Most brands focus all their energy into their original content – leaving audience interaction to a separate Community Management team who are mostly there to deliver copy-and-paste res
7 July 2023 · 1 min read
jacksflightclub – The Seat Lottery
Why we love it: Jacks Flight Club have paired one of their audience’s Relatable Truths (we’d call it a Small Joy, if you want to get specific) with the oft-used image of Robert Downey Jr looking relie
7 July 2023 · 1 min read
Corporate Rebels – Celebrating an accomplishment
Why we love it: Corporate Rebels consistently drive engagement on LinkedIn with graph gags that speak to their audience’s relatable truths, and here’s another strikingly simple-but-effective example.
7 July 2023 · 1 min read
Nicole Alexandra Michaelis – Copy Meets Design
Why we love it: Here we’ve got another LinkedIn marketer taking advantage of the relative rarity of memes on the platform – once again using the format to present one of her audience’s relatable pains
7 July 2023 · 1 min read