• by Larry Dobrow , July 11, 2004

Asking people to choose the funniest of anything - whether it be a comedian, sportscaster or clueless politician - is often an exercise in futility. The nation's seemingly quenchless thirst for Adam Sandler movies notwithstanding, humor is largely a matter of personal preference: what works for you probably doesn't work for the gal in the next cubicle.

And so it was with just a hint of trepidation that MediaPost had InsightExpress poll its subscribers about the role of humor in today's ad business. Yet when respondents were asked to identify the funniest people in the industry, the results were considerably more uniform than one might have expected. By that we mean: it didn't appear that too many obscure copy monkeys in Tuscaloosa nominated themselves.

Survey participants mostly declined to attach their names to their picks, perhaps out of concern that their hee-hee-hilarious bosses would wonder why they weren't mentioned in the same breath with Jon Stewart and Will Ferrell. Nonetheless, respondents had no shortage of thoughts on the matter.

The top vote-getters, predictably, included muckraker par excellence Michael Moore and radio legend Howard Stern, even though one respondent argued, "Howard's a lot funnier when he talks about lesbians than [when he talks] about the FCC." Media-friendly wits like Jerry Della Femina ("he's still sharp") and Donny Deutsch ("I'm not sure what he actually does anymore, but whenever he opens his mouth something entertaining comes out") also received a handful of mentions.

As for the media buying insiders, names brought up more than a few times included MediaCom's Jon Mandel and MindShare's David Marans. Comedy Central's recently retired Larry Divney and Dennis Publishing higher-up Lance Ford ("a lot funnier than his magazines," one admirer sniped) were among the few TV production and publishing execs nominated. Other random mentions included ex-Viacom honcho Mel Karmazin ("because he still believes we listen to him!") and President Bush.

Contacted late last week, one of the execs that received multiple nominations for the funny person award said he was both surprised and humbled by the acknowledgement. "Me? I'm not funny - I just work with a lot of funny writers," quipped Tracy Wong, creative director, chairman and founding partner of Seattle-based firm WONGDOODY. Cited for his dry wit and his company's clever work on behalf of clients like Alaska Airlines, Wong believes that humor is "the price of entry for getting consumers to pay attention." To that end, his bio on the WONGDOODY web site includes the following nugget: "Tracy is male, not female. Tracy is also better-looking and smarter than [firm president] Pat Doody or [chief executive officer] Ben Wiener."

Who does Wong consider the funniest people in the business? Eric Silver, executive creative director at BBDO/New York, who Wong credited as a pioneer of the "extreme humor" found in ads for products like Mike's Hard Lemonade. He's also impressed by the work of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, which he dubs "the preeminent creative shop" owing to its use of humor in TV spots for Saturn and Ace Hardware.

First In A Four-Part Series