Every great presentation hides something in plain sight
How to use a comedy technique to get the audience on your side
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a person in possession of a good microphone must want the audience on his/her side.
Whether you’re pitching for investment, performing at the Comedy Cellar or delivering a keynote, having the audience think you’re on their team is the difference between being remembered or forgotten.
But how do you get the audience on your side when there’s 60 of them in a dark room and you’ve never met before?
Loyal readers of this Substack will recall that friction, vulnerability and aspiration can be deployed to create a sense of relatability. But how do you get the audience to feel that they’re part of a privileged club, just by virtue of being in the audience?
The answer lies in planting a few seeds early on and then referring back to those words later in the presentation. In stand-up comedy this is known as a callback.
What is a callback?
In comedy, a callback is a joke that refers back to an earlier joke in the set.
The second mention lands harder than the first because the audience has been primed without knowing it.
The laughter comes from recognition as much as from the joke itself.
But for the audience, more powerful than the laughter is the satisfaction that they know that joke is coming.
This is remarkable as comedy relies on surprise to generate laughter. And yet callbacks are so powerful that they generate laughter through recognition alone.
Let’s see how this works in practice.
In this clip, Jimmy Kimmel congratulates John Oliver on beating his show to win an Emmy.
Oliver acknowledges Kimmel’s show by saying “I’m just so happy to be nominated with so many other great shows”.
This ends up becoming funny because Kimmel reveals that Oliver is reading his praise from cue cards. For a guest to read off cue cards is a surprise that triggers laughter.
As the bit progresses the TV audience can literally see what Oliver will say next as its laid out on cue cards. So the element of surprise has gone.
After Kimmel challenges Oliver on his sincerity, Oliver covers his eyes with his palm.
At this point, the insincerity of Oliver’s perspective has been established so the audience is on the lookout for something else that Oliver will be reading from, rather than speaking from the heart.
Oliver covers his eyes - but the audience already knows something written is coming. When Kimmel reveals the remarks on Oliver’s palm, the laughter comes not from surprise but from confirmation.
The universal truth is that the audience feels like they’re in on the joke.
You may have noticed that this article opened with Jane Austen. That was the seed. This is the callback. And if you felt a small flicker of recognition just now, that's exactly what you're trying to create in your audience.
Callbacks in business communication
We’ve established that a callback is referring to something that was mentioned earlier on in your presentation.
This works in business as well as in comedy.
When Steve Jobs revealed the iPhone at MacWorld in January 2007, he opened by telling the audience that Apple was introducing three revolutionary products: a widescreen iPod with touch controls, a revolutionary mobile phone, and a breakthrough internet communications device.
Then Jobs repeated the list. “An iPod. A phone. And an internet communicator.” He said it again and again, with deliberate cadence.
Jobs primed the audience to expect a single device that combined an iPod, internet connectivity and a mobile phone.
“Are you getting it?” he called.
The audience’s satisfaction came not from the reveal but from confirmation of what they already suspected. Jobs had made them feel like they were part of a special club.
Why this works
The human brain is a pattern-recognition machine. When a pattern is found, it’s essentially a dopamine hit.
When an audience hears something that calls back to what they heard earlier, they experience a small but distinct flash of satisfaction. It’s the neural equivalent of a puzzle piece clicking into place.
And crucially, it's attributed to the speaker.
The audience doesn't think "my brain just rewarded me." They think "this person is brilliant."
The callback doesn't just make the presentation more memorable. It makes the presenter more trusted.
In addition, humans are perennially socially conscious. Social status is always being communicated - through your alma mater, tennis club or bumper sticker.
Callbacks allow the audience to feel like they’re being included in a group (albeit a temporary, informal group), which triggers a distinct sense of status and belonging.
And so any person in possession of a good microphone who plants a seed early - and trusts the audience to feel it land later - has done something powerful.
They've made 60 people in a dark room feel like they were let in on a secret.
That's how you get an audience on your side.