There is little doubt that the cost of living crisis is making people miserable. For many life is more challenging than before the cost of groceries jumped 32.6% and gas prices shot up by 68% (latest ONS data). Mental health charity Mind reports that nearly half of people say their mental health has been impacted.

When times are tough brands tend to flock towards a chorus of empathy. Remember all those plinky plonky piano ads during Covid telling us that “in these uncertain times they were right by our side”. Likewise in the 2008 financial downturn most advertisers felt that staid, rational messaging fitted the mood of the people. But in his review of IPA effectiveness during past recessions Peter Field reminds us that emotional feel-good campaigns proved to be highly effective for T-Mobile, Virgin Atlantic, Hovis Bread and Cadbury.

Comms that mirror customers’ lived experience may feel like an easier strategy to buy than “let’s create some entertainment”. But just as Unilever proved that relentless communication of brand purpose isn’t the right strategy for every brand, gritty realism also isn’t the right comms strategy for most brands.

Data-intelligence company Morning Consult found that during the pandemic the only Covid-related messages that consumers wanted to hear from brands were the changes that the business was making to help people. So it’s safe to assume that unless your brand has radically adapted to the cost of living crisis, most consumers don’t want to hear your take on that either. Some brands will have a decent story to tell - like Tesco’s ‘We want you to spend less with us’ campaign (where the final line “because, right now, every little helps” reinforces their long-standing brand platform in a brilliantly resonant way). But most brands won’t have a parallel story that makes sense for their offering and positioning, and mere sympathy is not an effective substitute.

After hearing the new Prime Minister tell us all “It’s all going to get worse before it gets better”, I doubt people want to turn on their TV or open up Tiktok to many more reminders of the challenges that they are facing. Instead, they’d appreciate some light relief from it all.

As complex and sensitive creatures, humans are drawn towards temporary reprieves from reality. It’s why we prioritise going on holiday even when disposable income is squeezed and gravitate towards escapist entertainment: Genre-shattering ‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’, released in 2022, is now the most awarded film of all time and, for the past 2 years, the BBC has been actively choosing to air shows that offer escapism in order to help viewers through the tough times. Even momentary “glimmers” of distraction from everyday ordeals are pleasurable. When Guardian journalist (and self-styled pessimist) Emma Beddington tried the micro-moments of joy experiment (as part of the citizen science project “Big Joy”), even she conceded that her well-being increased by 14.13%.

The crisis context doesn’t change this desire for escapism. By analysing facial coding data, during both the pandemic and economic downturn alongside periods of prosperity, Kantar recently reported that people's emotional responses remained consistent across all periods. Furthermore, 86% of people also reported that the use of humour in advertising is appropriate in the current economic and social atmosphere.

Of course, we must be sensitive and avoid being tone-deaf, but that doesn’t mean that entertainment has to take a back seat. Orlando Wood and his colleagues at System1 have made “entertain for commercial gain” their mantra for effective advertising and I couldn’t agree more. Brands that entertain (helping people to escape the ‘here and now’ for a moment) not only get noticed but have the chance to build positive associations. In a world of endless competition for attention, it’s critical to make content that audiences actually want to watch. In efforts to make advertising as measurable and efficient as possible our industry has drifted away from this - towards rational work that makes sense on paper yet isn't as effective.

But let’s be frank: it’s a much harder sell - especially in the current context. We created an ad for Airtasker that sells the dreamy feeling of getting tasks done by the simple story of 90's-loving Dan who commissions Airtasker's Rosie to build him a den for all his memorabilia. It's an ultra-colourful visual feast filled with the running man, Bart Simpson and a mic drop - and it’s currently running all year on Channel 4. It took our clients (and their stakeholders) some guts to get behind this 90’s-megamix, rather than playing it safe with some boring incarnation of an explanatory video.

But it is worth it - it’s often how a brand can differentiate from the million other messages we see every day. In many categories like whisky, “focusing on authenticity” has become the de facto comms strategy - even before the cost of living crisis. They even shared similar brand lines: ‘stay true’, ‘be true’ etc. Our multi-award winning ad for The Woodsman Whisky defied the category norm for serious craftsmanship and reflective sophistication and instead featured a bunch of hard working beavers enjoying a well earned dram at the end of a busy day. The ad launched last year and was so successful in driving brand and sales uplifts that it's back on air. A beaver in a hot tub is infinitely more memorable than yet another rugged craftsman.

Advertising has the power to capture the imagination, to inspire, to make us laugh and to transport us to other places - enabling a momentary escape from the anxieties of the here and now. Whilst prioritising empathy is relevant in some scenarios, it’s just one tool in the box. Brands should explore the full gamut of possibility - and where appropriate embrace escapism as an opportunity to stand out and build positive brand associations. Let's face it, rather than holding yet another mirror to the challenges, right now we could all use a little more light to balance the shade.