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Humor in Business

by Don L. F. Nilsen and

Alleen Pace Nilsen

Creative Advertising

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More Creative Advertising

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The Internal Revenue Service

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Bob Mankoff’s New Yorker Business Humor

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CREATIVE HONDA AD:

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/Dxy4n0UT82o?rel=0

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Two Business Models:

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Spaghetti Factory & Kleenex: Explain!

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Business Symbolism

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Bad Jobs!

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BUSINESSES ARE NOW LOOKING FOR NEW APPROACHES

An Office at Google

• Humor consultant John Morreall advises businesses on how to make employees “like” to come to work.

• It is fine to decorate an office or pin up cartoons, but really, it i much more complex than that.

• They find ways to make their employees WANT to come to work.

• Offices should be fun to look at and to work in.

• But there’s more to it than that.

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MOTIVATION: PROFIT VS. PURPOSE; LEVELING THE HIERARCHY (e.g. Internet, Wikipedia, Skype, Facebook, Google, Southwest…):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc&feature=relmfu

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Businesses which encourage humor also:

• Take initiative and risks.

• Do not worry about making mistakes.

• Spend energy on solutions.

• Shoot for total quality.

• Focus on opportunities.

• Do not worry about breaking things.

• Try easier, not harder.

• Stay calm.• Take responsibility.• Experiment.• Smile.• Have fun.

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To Accomplish These Goals, Companies:

–Flatten the organization by reducing levels of management.

–Allow workers more discretion in making decisions.

–Foster creative thinking.–Accept employee attitudes, emotions,

and suggestions. –Encourage teamwork and

collaboration.

Administrators’ Views of Humor-in-Business :

• A sense of humor makes businesses more creative, less rigid, and more willing to consider and embrace new ideas and methods.

• In a different survey of 737 CEO’s, 98% said that humor was important in the conduct of business.

• They therefore gave preference to people with a sense of humor.

• Soft skills are better predictors of success in management than are hard skills.

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More Support for Humor

• The director of human resources at Sun Microsystems watches for how long it takes an interviewee to laugh or to find something funny

• She says that humor is very important in their corporate futures.

• One business created a “Grouch Patrol.” Whenever they see someone with a sour face, they respond by making a bat face.

• This involves pushing the tip of their noses up, flicking their tongues in and out, and making a high-pitched “Eeeee” sound.

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When Humor “Bubbles-Up” from Employees, There Will of Course Be Lots of Variety.

• Practical jokes we’ve recently heard:

– Putting foam packing bubbles in the cubicles of colleagues who are absent.

– A boss going on a three-week trip, and coming back to find real sod rolled out in his office just to prove that “grass does grow under your feet.”

– A door-decorating contest on the cruise ship taking 12 of their outstanding employees to Mexico, in which winners had photos of their faces superimposed on pictures of jungle animals.

– Their slogan was “Where the Wild Things Are.”

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At our local BEADS GALORE store an employee made this sign for the window.

“UNATTENDED CHILDREN WILL BE GIVEN TO THE GOBLIN KING”

APPARENTLY, SHE WAS TIRED OF REARRANGING THE DISPLAYS.

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Other Examples of Workplace Humor

• A debt collector sent out a letter reading, “We appreciate your business, but, please, give us a break. Your account is overdue 10 months. That means we’ve carried you longer than your mother did.”

• A business manager, who made a really bad mistake, wore a T-shirt with a large red bulls-eye on it when he went to a meeting about the problem.

• A large IBM sales team improved their record 30% when they formed a pick-up orchestra and recorded their sales in fun ways, e.g. by blowing a horn, smashing a gong.

More Examples

• Esther Blumenfield and Lynne Alpern told about how four women conspired to get even with a male co-worker.

• At meetings, he would routinely drop his pencil on the floor so that he could bend down under the table and look up their skirts.

• One day before a scheduled meeting, they used a magic marker to print on their kneecaps: H I (space) R A L P H.

• The CEO of a large Canadian bank appears in a monthly corporate video shown to all employees to discuss recent issues and plans.

• A hand puppet appears and begins poking fun and asking him embarrassing questions about recent problems. 20

Jimmy John’s Sandwich Shops are successful because of their

quirky humor.

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Cartoonist Scott Adams draws “Dilbert” cartoons which explore these business-

related themes:• Downsizing • Heavy work loads • Micromanagement • Humiliatingly small cubicles• Accelerating pace of change • Corporate gobbledygook • Management fads• Cruel bosses • Annoying colleagues • Red tape.

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DILBERT STREAMING:http://www.youtube.com/user/dilbert

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Adams encourages readers to send in their true stories. They are often published on the Business

pages of newspapers.

A management expert at Apple Computer said,

“There are only two kinds of companies, those that recognize that they’re just like Dilbert, and those that don’t know it yet.”

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Once employees incorporate humor in their daily lives, it seems natural to extend humor to

their customers and potential customers.

• Volkswagen introduced the VW Rabbit into the U.S. with a 10-second commercial showing two rabbits looking into the camera. One is saying, “In 1956 there were only two VWs in America. . .”

• At a California traffic school named Lettuce Amuse U, the teachers are comedians. They use humor to relax students.

• One teacher explains that an extra reason for keeping your baby safe in a backward-facing car seat is “If you get rear-ended, you’ve got a witness.”

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Before a three-day-weekend, the State Highway Department uses humor by putting

lighted warnings on major highways:

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Cheap Flights:

http://www.youtube.com/embed/HPyl2tOaKxM

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The Arizona Republic gives away umbrellas covered with reprints of their comic strips.

Our foot doctor incorporates the anti-fungus toenail gang to tell us to turn off our cell phones.

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Connections between Humor and Advertising

• They both require brevity.

• They open people’s minds to enable them to have a new viewpoint.

• People get involved in processing the message, and therefore remember it longer.

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An Advertisement for Coke (Coca Cola):

THE HAPPINESS MACHINE:

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=lqT_dPApj9U

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Match the Slogans with the Products

• The beer that made Milwaukee famous

• B. O.• Say it with flowers• When it rains, it pours• Snap, crackle and pop• Nature’s spelled

backwards• Good to the Last Drop

• Rice Krispies• Schlitz Beer• Seratan• American Florist

Assoc.• Maxwell Coffee• Morton Salt• Lifebuoy Soap

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Creative spelling made these names memorable and helped with trademark protection.

Some Early Examples

• Kwik• ReaLemon• Reddi-Wip• Ry-Krisp• Krispies• Tastee-Freez• Toys “Я” Us• U-Haul

More Recent Examples

• Aspercreme• Dunkin’ Donuts• Haggar Expand-o-matic• Kwik Kopy• Playskool• Sominex• Whataburger• Wolverine Durashocks

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The Staying Power of Brand NamesNineteen of the twenty-two companies that owned the

leading American brands in 1925 still own them.

• Campbells in soup• Del Monte in canned

fruit• Gillette in razors• Ivory in soap• Kellogg’s in

breakfast cereals

• Kodak in film• Nabisco in cookies• Sherwin Williams in

paint• Singer in sewing

machines• Wrigleys in chewing

gum

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Why did Band-Aid, Kleenex, Scotch Tape, Thermos, and Zipper become common rather

than proper nouns? Think of other examples.

These are relatively older products.These are “benchmark” products.

But today advertisers work to “protect” their names so that consumers will look exclusively for their products rather than for the imitators.

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James Twitchell, used his own kind of humor to criticize America’s market culture. He wrote:

• “If Greece gave the world philosophy, Britain gave drama, Austria gave music, Germany gave politics, and Italy gave art, then America has recently contributed mass-produced and mass-consumed objects.”

• He added that our materialism is a kind of spiritualism, but instead of looking at the next life for our rewards, we are looking for “The Nike swoosh, the Polo pony, the Guess? label, and the DKNY logo.”

Are we influenced by ads?

• People say that they don’t pay much attention to ads. They just tune them out, believing they have no effect.

• In Nazi Germany, Joseph Goebbels said that the secret of propaganda is that “those who are to be persuaded should be completely immersed in the ideas of the propaganda, without ever noticing that they are being immersed in it.”

• This is where humor comes in. If we are amused or laughing at a commercial or a program, our defenses are down and we are more likely to want to buy whatever is being shown.

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The Power of Advertising

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Products are our friends.

• Alcoholics joke that Jack Daniels is their constant lover, while smokers feel that cigarettes are their friends. People are twice seduced, first by the ads and then by the substances.

• “Infiniti is an automobile; Hydra Zen is a moisturizer, and Jesus is a brand of jeans.”

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Even ten-year-olds are being turned into COVER GIRLS.

• Each girl at this weekend celebration in Louisville brought her “American Girl” doll.

• All the girls were photographed and put onto a “fake” cover of a local magazine.

• What parent could resist buying it?

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Commercialization teaches people to be shoppers.

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Women are especially targeted.

Why do teenage girls shoplift more often than do teenage boys?

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Which of the following statements are gender marked?– A woman’s place is in the mall.– But I can’t be overdrawn! I still have some checks. – He who dies with the most toys wins.– I’m spending my grandchildren’s inheritance.– Nouveau riche is better than no riche at all.– People who say money can’t buy happiness, don’t

know where to shop.– Shop ‘til you drop.– When the going gets tough, the tough go

shopping.

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We will conclude with miscellaneous “Laws of Business” developed over the years:

• MURPHY’S LAW: “If anything can go wrong, it will,” extended to “When left to themselves, things always go from bad to worse,” and “If anything can go wrong, it will, and even if it can’t it might.”

• O’TOOLE’S LAW: Murphy was an optimist.

• DAMON RUNYAN’S LAW: In all human affairs, the odds are always six to five against.

MORE LAWS . . .

•THE PETER PRINCIPLE: Each employee tends to rise to their level of incompetence.

•PETER’S COROLLARY PRINCIPLE: When people are doing well they will be promoted, which means that everyone not upwardly mobile is incompetent.

•MARSHALL’S GENERALIZED ICEBERG THEOREM: Seven-eights of everything cannot be seen.

•PAUL HERBIG’S PRINCIPLE OF BUREAUCRATIC TINKERTOYS: If it can be understood, it’s not yet finished.

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THE FINAL RULES OF BUSINESS

• RULE NUMBER 1:

The boss is always right.

• RULE NUMBER 2:

If the boss is wrong, see Rule

Number 1.