If you have ever been asked to do something funny, you’ll know how hard it can be. I always think of the DJ in Good Morning Vietnam who takes over from Robin Williams with a series of polkas and scripted comedy, following on from Adrian Kronkauer was never going to be an easy gig.

Funny is hard to do well bu if you go by the data from eMarketer then it is worthwhile trying, people respond better to ads that make them laugh, their recall is higher and they are more likely to share the ad with their friends. If you get funny wrong though it can get passed around and pilloried for all the wrong reasons – think about Microsoft’s recent Windows 7 launch party videos which were frankly gruesome even if they were being ironic.

There is a full report available from eMarketer called How to Market to the Online Video Audience. If you are trying to figure out how to do it then it will be worth a read. Of course – once you do decide to advertise using online video, you’ll want to make it interactive and measurable and if you aren’t sure how to do that then I may just know someone who can help.

Fighting environmental damage caused by climate change is a difficult subject. Connect 2 Earth is a campaign featuring a number of videos which attempt to use humour to cover this important but sometimes boring subject. I think that it works nicely, it’s international since no dialogue is used, it gets the message across and it makes you chuckle. Lets hope that it has an impact.