A pig walks into a bar with a duck riding on his back. The bartender takes one look at the situation and says, "Hey, no pets in here.”

"He’s not a pet,” the duck says. "He’s my Uber driver.”

"An Uber driver! Are you expecting me to believe that a pig can drive a car?” the bartender replied.

"Sure would,” the duck said, "and do you know why?”

"No I don’t,” said the bartender.

"Because you’re the one who believes that ducks can talk.”

Knock, knock.

Who’s there?

Oink, oink!

Hey, did anyone call for a ride?

Why did the duck cross the road?

Because the pig had the wrong address.

Last Monday was National Tell a Joke Day. If there were a National Tell a Bad Joke Day, the above Duck and Pig jokes might have qualified. Humor and marketing have long roots that intertwine with each other. Why is that? Because funny things capture our attention. We have a hard time separating ourselves from laughter. If someone is watching some sort of media and starts to laugh, we want to see it too. Anytime you have that kind of reaction, it is a marketing opportunity.

However, there is great difficulty in doing humorous marketing. Humor is not easy to do because not everyone laughs at the same jokes. Part of that is generational. The things my parents thought were funny were not funny to me and vice versa. But part of it is the times in which we live. We need to recognize a rather current cultural shift in what people are laughing at - or I should say, not laughing at - these days. People are rather sensitive to making light of anything that could be seen as a putdown of others (which is why classic comedy of a decade or two ago has been condemned by the current generation.) This is why a lot of brands have leaned away from humor in their marketing. They are fearful that someone will be offended.

How do you make your marketing funny without someone getting upset about it? One way to make your marketing humorous is to make it absurd. The insurance company, Geico, has done that for years, like this classic Hump Day ad. Now you may be saying, "that ad is funny, but it doesn’t help sell insurance.” The main objective of that ad is not to instantly sell insurance, it is to help you remember the brand name and the tagline: Geico, 15 minutes could save you 15 percent or more on car insurance – which will sell you insurance. The talking camel is a way to capture your attention so that you recognize the brand and quickly understand what they can do for you. For instance, as bad as my opening jokes were, it does set up an absurdity that, if you are in on the joke, all I would have to do is send you a marketing message that said "Oink, Quack!” and you would know exactly what I meant.Tie your brand to that absurd message and you have a marketing campaign.

Are there pitfalls with this kind of campaign? Certainly. You can cross the line of good taste and push the stupid humor too far. But marketing is all about pushing the boundaries. There is little that is off limits in advertising ridiculousness. The plain truth is that, as preposterous as this type of marketing can be, it continues to capture the attention of people. Whenever you have that kind of device, you should use it.