No funny business in communications? We highly disagree.
After a single tweet made her giggle during her late-night unproductive social media scroll, Marla scrapped her original episode to explore all things hilarious. She unpacks why humor is sparingly used in marketing, how it can be used effectively, and when it's best to be avoided.
Campaigns Marla Raved About:
Lyft: "Crumbs Were Left"
Drizly: "A Farewell Rant"
Oatly: "Fck Oatly"
That's all for now!
Follow Us:
LinkedIn: 212 Communications
Instagram: @notyourparentspr, @MarlaRose__ @MadsCaldwell
No funny business in communications? We highly disagree.
After a single tweet made her giggle during her late-night unproductive social media scroll, Marla scrapped her original episode to explore all things hilarious. She unpacks why humor is sparingly used in marketing, how it can be used effectively, and when it's best to be avoided.
Campaigns Marla Raved About:
Lyft: "Crumbs Were Left"
Drizly: "A Farewell Rant"
Oatly: "Fck Oatly"
That's all for now!
Follow Us:
LinkedIn: 212 Communications
Instagram: @notyourparentspr, @MarlaRose__ @MadsCaldwell
Welcome back to Not your Parents PR. I am your host, marla, for today and, honestly, I had a full episode written. I was ready to go, and then last night on social media, I was scrolling and I stopped in my tracks and I realized I need to pivot the episode entirely because I want to talk about humor today and I feel like it is such an overlooked tool in communications and I want to talk about why I love it so much and why it should be used more often. So, for starters, I just want to go through three reasons why I think humor is overlooked, and these are valid reasons, but I do think there is some wiggle room and some strategic ways to overcome the fears and the concerns.
Speaker 1:So, number one I think a lot of brands fear that using humor will mislead from the product In general. I think a lot of brands often get nervous when they are not talking about the product itself or the service they're trying to sell. I think we fall into the trap sometimes of thinking that every single piece of content we have to put out has to drive back to the sell, and I think that while, yes, let's be smart about marketing, it is designed to make more money or achieve our internal business goals, completely understand, but I think that humor can be a way to draw folks in to learn more about your product and it can be almost a bigger selling point, in my opinion. So that's number one. Number two I think there's a fear of rejection, right? I mean, if you think about sitting around with your group of friends every time you're about to crack a joke and you say the joke and it doesn't land, or no one laughs, or only one person gives you a pity chuckle, it's scary, and no one likes to be rejected and no one likes to feel like their joke didn't resonate with others. Humor can be so personal and there can be such sensitivities wrapped up in it, but I just have to say there will always be the presence of a potential rejection, but taking the risk to do it in spite of that is what will help you succeed. Tying in with rejection, I do want to talk about the fear of saying something insensitive, a completely valid fear, and I think this just goes back to doing your due diligence and trying the best you can and always speaking with good intention.
Speaker 1:I think that an easy way, or I shouldn't say an easy way. I think all you can do is do your homework. If you're using a word you're unfamiliar with or a phrase you're unfamiliar with, type it into Google, see how it's used, see if there's any negative connotations associated with it. Are you punching down? Are you signaling out a certain group? And, if so, why are you doing that? And make sure that you don't. I think that humor takes a lot of strategy, and that is often overlooked as well, and so, to ensure that you're never insensitive, really do your homework before you publish that tweet.
Speaker 1:Number three I think that in the more buttoned up industries that deal with heavier topics like think banking, other financial services, healthcare it's a tricky line to walk right. You want to make sure that the focus is back on the topic at hand and that you aren't too jokey, because then people won't take you seriously, and that's totally fair. But I think there are so many ways to infuse light humor where appropriate. Geico is a wonderful example. They know they're in the insurance industry which, candidly, a little boring, and they know that. So they played off of it and went so odd, so out there, and that's why their commercials are still iconic to this day. So I think there are ways to do it, and I'll get into this a little bit more later. But as long as you're not infusing humor in places where humor shouldn't be, then you're allowed to do it and it can also humanize the brand and make someone more willing to work with you over a competitor. So that is my first rant.
Speaker 1:My second rant why I love humor, why I love it so so much? I'm going to give you three reasons. Number one humor is a fantastic way to show off your brand personality and cultivate it too. It can really show the humans behind the product. At the end of the day let's be real Life is hard, right, life can be really hard sometimes and very serious, and there's so much that goes on in a day and there's so much clutter and noise, and I think that lightening the mental load that we deal with through the day-to-day with some humor really can show your softer side. If anything, if you're a customer scrolling social media and they stop and they laugh at something you posted, I think that's a win. They'll always remember who wrote it, how it made them feel and how it made their day just a little bit brighter. So it strengthens the bond, whether you're for a new customer or a loyal fan. So that's number one. Number two humor does a fantastic job at creating chatter.
Speaker 1:So think of the Super Bowl. I love the Super Bowl. I love it because not only because I get to eat chips to my heart's content Actually I do that any day of the week, but it feels really good for some reason on Super Bowl Sunday where you just get to indulge, but that's a tangent. So I love the Super Bowl because I do love football, but I also love the commercials and I love that the commercials often lean into humor and they do that because they want to start a conversation. They want consumers talking about how funny the joke was, how well it landed, and I really think that worked this year with the Super Bowl, with the Duncan the Dunkings commercial. I had many friends, family, talking about that in the weeks after the Super Bowl. I really think that humor does a fantastic job of stirring up conversations and I think that when you are the center of the joke, you have the control and it always reflects back well on you.
Speaker 1:Okay, number three, and this is my favorite one, I think humor is a clear sign of intelligence. I think you have to be smart to be funny because it is an art form. It takes skill to be timely, to be culturally relevant, to not be cheesy, to not be corny, but to be clever. That takes so much strategy and having a good sense of when it is time to chime in with a witty comment and when it is time to take a back seat. I think humor takes a lot of smarts, and you have to be smart to be funny, and I think that if you make someone laugh, you get their respect. I really believe that.
Speaker 1:So now we're going to move on to some of my favorite brands and the ones that were keeping me up last night on social media. Okay, so, number one, we have to talk about what Lyft is doing on Twitter. I mean, they're just, they're doing the most. They're doing the most. I love it so, so much. So last night I was scrolling and, as we all know, this past week Beyonce released her new album, cowboy Carter, highly anticipated. It's so good. I've been listening all day and in anticipation of that, this is where timeliness comes in, right, we all know what's happening, right? Everyone knew that Beyonce was coming out with this album. She's huge in pop culture If you're a brand that has an opportunity to chime in on that, you should.
Speaker 1:Uber put out a promotion where they were offering 16% off rides to go with her song 16 Carriages. They had a little graphic with it, having people fill in the blanks for Cowboy Carter. Lyft just commented crumbs were left and that caused a stir and everyone loved it. I'm talking about this right now, on Friday March 29th, but it has nearly 2,000 reposts at this point and everyone had a field day with it and I have to say there's so much power in this because it was so playful and it wasn't super mean spirited. Everyone knows that Lyft and Uber are rival companies, right, but they're not doing it in a way that's malicious. Lyft is, I think, at least, not trying to take down Uber and Uber is not going to try to take down Lyft. Both can exist and I think it's fun to play off that battle. We love a little conflict, right, like we love to see a little back and forth sassy remarks flying back and forth. It's fun, it's harmless and it really performed great.
Speaker 1:Now the other thing I want to talk about is the tweet that happened the following day. So Lyft tweeted out what appears to be a slack from its CEO so funny. And it says that CEO David Rusher sent it at 12.01 AM. So right after the album dropped, it says OMG, this album slaps, can we make another code, 60% off this time? And so funny. I mean, just done so well. And they posted it out. Lyft said say less King. And made a promotion. And again so, yes, it's one-upping Uber because it's a larger promotion, but it's all in good fun, Everyone is on the same page. We love Beyonce, right? So they're rallying around a central theme and it works and it's just done so well.
Speaker 1:Last thing I want to say is that Lyft's bio on social media says Lyft laugh, love. And I mean that's delightful. That's so iconic. I love what they did there and keep up the good work. And Twitter I will say one more thing, or X, whatever you would like to call it is a really lovely place to be playful and to be fun and to chime in in this way.
Speaker 1:There are other platforms where maybe this isn't the best strategy, but they know their platform and they know how to work it. So that's my first example Amazing. I dreamt of Lyft last night. Okay, number two Drizzly. Oh my gosh. So I posted about this on LinkedIn this week. Drizzly is no longer. Drizzly is phasing out the alcohol delivery service.
Speaker 1:It's never fun when a company has to shut down operations, right? That's probably not the best feeling for the team. Like, I can't guess what they're thinking, but I do think it's challenging sometimes. Right, but they took back their power and they did it with humor, and that's another thing. Humor is a great way to take control of the conversation. So they played into the sadness of it all, almost. So.
Speaker 1:I got an email last week that said a farewell rant from Drizzly, and I'm going to read it right now. Okay, so it says yep, we're still closing down, and that means it's time for the gloves to come off. Inhale steeply. We've written you hundreds, if not thousands, of emails over the last five years, and not Inhales deeply, journey, and we wouldn't trade it for all of King Midas gold. The memories we made together will echo throughout eternity and hopefully make for at least a full page in the yearbook. That is your life Too brutal, too offensive. Well, send your complaints to drizzlee at fakeemailaccountnet biz. Rant over, we love you. I mean hilarious. And to put a fake email at the end, so good. And I'm reading this to you. I will link it in the show notes, but they've capitalized words all over the place and it's just funny. It leaves a good impression and I will be a fan of Drizzly for the rest of my life, even if it doesn't exist.
Speaker 1:I know it's getting absorbed into Uber Eats, but it is a really. It's just a job well done. There are so many other ways they could have done it Like a more corporate angle would have been to just give the consumers the information at hand and say goodbye, or maybe not even send an email at all. But they said, no, we still have something of value to say and we're going to say it. So I love it. So many claps, so many claps.
Speaker 1:Okay, number three Oatly. My gosh, oatly. I mean I'm sure you've seen Oatly is a marketing machine. They are. Whoever's working there is doing a phenomenal job. They are not afraid to take risks. I mean you could even argue, launching an oat milk brand is a risk, like you're going against the dairy industry, and while there is such an increase right now in dairy-free beverages, it's still a risk, right. I mean you can't compete with the Got Milk campaign. That's a tough one to beat. But Oatly does a phenomenal job.
Speaker 1:So Oatly's campaign it's called. I'm not going to curse outright, but it says fckoatlycom. So over the years they've had a few legitimate PR. You can call them scandals, you could call them, you know, run--ins with the law or just some instances over the years where their company hasn't been seen in the best light. So this campaign is genius. They made a landing page for all of their headlines that are less than ideal over the years and they break down every single issue and essentially made a place for the haters. So I'm just going to read the tagline for the website Again. This will all be linked in the show notes, but it says a time machine of all things bad about an oat drink company.
Speaker 1:Welcome to FCK Oatly, a site devoted to helping our fans and thousands of people who hate us better understand everything that's, in quotations, wrong with our company. Why would we build such a website? That's a great question. For starters, it's super convenient to have the latest boycotts and criticisms all in one place. We see all the negative headlines, posts and petitions as an inevitable consequence of trying to create positive social change. It's so good. I will let you explore at your leisure, but, for instance, one of the things was they launched a campaign in Ireland that got banned by the National Dairy Council, which is just pretty funny, and that actually happened. I did some research on it below, so I really think it's just so funny, and in the first six months of this site being live, it had about 300,000 visits. So well done. I think this is a really beautiful move in transparency and I think it just again allows them to take back control, allows them to be the center of power and the center of their story, and I just absolutely love it. Moving on to the end of our episode, I'm so sad.
Speaker 1:I could talk about humor all day, so I want to give a few tangible ways to apply humor, even if you just want to dip your toes into humor. So, for starters, you can do social posts. I think that your social media channels are the place to be a little bit more casual. Let your hair down a little bit, have some fun. One way to do that is by throwing in a GIF, and I think GIFs say a lot in a little. And, to be safe, you always can use GIFs that are like, widely accepted in pop culture, use GIFs from shows that are very well loved, and I think that can always go over well. So see how you can play with GIFs. That's where I would start. And then you can go into emojis and you know, even using improper grammar like capital letters and dot dot dots, and you can have fun on social media. I promise you it'll resonate so much with your audience. And you can have fun on social media. I promise you it'll resonate so much with your audience.
Speaker 1:Okay, next up, you can get creative and email subject lines. I think we get 100 million emails a day. Again, you can throw emojis in there or you can have kind of a subject line that you're known for. So one example I love to use is the Skimm, which is an amazing newsletter you should sign up for. In their subject lines for their daily news blasts, they will often put song lyrics, which is just super fun, and I know around when albums release, they'll often use lines from the album and I think that's really fun and it's you know, it's not laugh out loud funny, but it puts a smile on your face. Right, and I think that's something to talk about too. With humor is that you don't need the big laugh, you just need the little chuckles here and there, the smiles, the laughs that are internal. I feel like those also go a really long way.
Speaker 1:Lastly, I'm going to say blogs. I think blogs are a great way to show off a natural, casual language. This can go with comparisons. You can use some cliches throughout. I think that that's a good way to show off your casual nature. So we love all of that. And then also headlines for blogs too. Don't be afraid to have a little bit of fun with the headline that you use.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I will say before I leave you all here's where I would avoid using humor. For the most part, I would say anything that has to go on your actual services page, your company founder story page. Maybe you could infuse humor in your header on a website, but for the most part, when folks actually go to your company website, that's not the place to really make a ton of jokes. This is where you really have to put all your cards on the table, like who are you, what do you do? How can you make your customer's life easier? Jokes are fine to weave in here and there, but it shouldn't be the center of attention. And I also think that jokes are so funny, right, but they have a lifespan, right. Like a tweet's only funny for you know, a day or two it's, you know, and then someone might look back on it and like, oh, remember this joke. But humor really should be fresh. So if you have the same joke that's living on your landing page, it might be time to switch it out or just not include at all.
Speaker 1:Okay, next up, I would say customer service. I mean, you know chatbots, all that good stuff. You can be friendly over customer service, but there's no real place for humor, right. Like, why are people going to customer service? Like, probably because they're upset about something or trying to get an issue resolved or really just need information. So I would say, leave the humor out of the chatbots and the customer service calls, all that good stuff.
Speaker 1:And then, lastly, I would say transactions. So when you're at the checkout page of a store, yeah, we don't really need humor there, right? I mean, at the end of the day, what I will say is that trust is everything between you and your customer relationships. That trust can easily be broken. It's so fragile.
Speaker 1:And I think when a customer is making a purchase, that is where the trust can be lost so quickly, because they're giving you their money, they've decided, they've made the purchase decision and if humor is there in a way that doesn't feel right or doesn't land properly, then they might not go through with the transaction or might question the validity of your site. So especially if you're an emerging brand. So that is my like shaking finger warning to you all about humor, but thank you so much for listening. I could talk about humor forever and I will definitely be talking about this more on LinkedIn, so feel free to follow me and read the show notes for all these lovely examples of humor. But that's about it. Thank you so much for joining. I hope you had a fun time today and please leave us a review. We would love it. Okay, bye.