Why Marketers Cannot Explain a Joke — and What That Costs Them

A new essay on craft and communication opens with Abbott and Costello's "Who's on First?" — one of the most famous comedy bits of all time — and asks a question most marketers dodge: why is it funny?

The essay's core claim is blunt. The disconnect between experiencing something and explaining it is "one of the challenges of teaching." The author adds that it is "also at the heart of leadership, marketing and culture."

That framing lands directly on practitioner territory. Design, good taste, genre, communication style — the essay lists these as human endeavors that "inform our days" while leaving most of us "at a loss to explain them."

What makes the routine work?

The essay treats Abbott and Costello as "avatars, approachable and relatable to their audience." A viewer can see themselves as one or the other, depending on the moment. The dialogue is plotted intricately, building on itself, "gaining traction and increasing tension as it goes."

The audience is never confused. The essay notes that most viewers are "in on the joke" early, understanding the nature of the wordplay well before the sketch ends. The routine becomes an icon that others copy, "sometimes with great fidelity." It has even become, in the author's words, "a three-word shorthand."

The parallel to brand work is explicit. "We can have the same discussion about your logo," the essay states. "Or why your book cover is less than it could be."

Where formula ends

The essay draws a hard line between engineering and taste. When someone designs a bridge, "we don't have to wonder if the engineer 'gets it.'" The metrics are obvious, measured with precise words and numbers external to personal experience — and whether a person or a machine runs the calculations, "it works or it doesn't."

Most of the human experience does not reduce that way. It is "too layered and nuanced to be reduced to a simple formula." The essay invokes Robert Heinlein, who coined the 1960s term grok — the requirement to notice enough and engage enough to genuinely understand.

The author points to municipalities that set aside resources for a "signature" bridge, their own Golden Gate. Conflict follows: not just disagreement about whether the river crossing needs more than utility, but about what "beautiful and important even looks like." The essay's verdict: "Some people don't get it."

What does this change for marketers?

The essay's most practical distinction is linguistic. "'That's not beautiful,' is not the same as, 'I don't think that's beautiful.'" The first declares a fact. The second admits a viewer.

Human emotions, the essay argues, "require a viewer, not just a creator." The funny, the beauty, the elegance — they happen for someone, in their experience. A creator does not have to explain a joke, a sculpture or a logo. But the essay insists they must "know enough to imagine that someone else is going to get it," and care enough to figure out why someone responds to work that leaves them cold.

The closing line removes any hope of a shortcut: "There's no algorithm, which is part of the point." For teams under pressure to systematize creative judgment, that is the so-what — empathy and attention remain the only tools that scale.