Those cheeky Brits. Of course it had to happen, and it’s no surprise to see this coming out of the land of classic comedy TV, lager-drinking and curry (three national obsessions that make living in the rain-drenched UK almost tolerable). First there was the MouthOff, the app that lets you superimpose a voice-activated animated image of a mouth over your own face. Now iBanter replaces the stock photos of mouths with videos of mouths of comedians telling jokes. Hilarious – really, they are, and it is. So long as buffering doesn’t screw up the frickin’ punchline…Not only are the jokes funny, but it’s a giggle watching people, especially kids, with some bearded comedian’s mouth doing the talking.
Brand match: This is a long way from those irritating Yo Mama and barf joke ringtones reformatted from the Comedy Central archives. It was cooked up by London agency Poke, for their client Cobra, the beer that goes well with curry. Poke had production company Irresistible Films capture 200 stand-ups telling jokes. The app streams the content over a few months, which makes sense all round, as you get to download new jokes on Friday on the way to the pub. Users hold the phone up over their mouths and the mouth on the screen tells a joke. Brilliantly simple, nicely weird in a boozy sort of way, and it gives the beer brand a foothold on the comedy circuit, so loads of cross-platform angles to explore, like a How 2 website, competitions, sponsorships and a YouTube channel planned, presumably with UGC upload capability.
Now where the hell was this when I was doing my best man’s speech?