Corporate humour hints and tips
ADZ will always provide an opinion on the level of humour for any project, depending on the market, product, geographic region and objective. For example, on the scale of 1 - 10, a firm of undertakers would clearly be a '0', but a website, training video or advert used to sell comedians to comedy clubs would be a '10'.
Caution should be used when using expletives. This website can get away with a few mild ones because of the bleedin' services it offers, nevertheless (and in case it is not bloody obvious) a website that deals will children, senior citizens or sells cute puppy dogs, damn well can't or it may bugger up your objectives. On the other end of the spectrum, causing a little bit of controversy could result in public awareness.
Using humour, specifically sarcasm, during a dispute, can get a big organisation or public government agency to listen to a small organisations' complaints at the highest level. Andronicos has written a whole book on this subject, which will be published soon.
Material for TV and radio can be produced on a much higher humour level. Using the above scale of 1 - 10, a financial institution could have a level 7 humour advertising campaign, such as the recent excellent one from the Nationwide building society.
Material for internal corporate use, such as documentation, training courses or filming can be at an even higher humour level compared to the perceived conservativeness of a large organisation. Nevertheless, always assume that the commissioned internal material will be made public by a member of staff, accidentally or otherwise.
One more word of caution. ADZ are sometimes commissioned to 'interview' senior managers on camera for a fun internal film for staff use. Dean is often asked to be the Ali G tribute character interviewer in this scenario. If you are an owner manager and want to thank staff for a bumper year, be wary of libelling your colleagues. A fun remark implying the finance director is corrupt, may be an in joke within your company which he shares, until he eventually moves to another job.
If there is any doubt, ADZ always recommends research is undertaken first. Sometimes, this research can be as simple as formal approval from a senior manager.
A simple international profile
- Americans laugh at authority or embarrassing unusual situations. The Anglo Saxon ones have similar tastes to British and Irish humour. But they do not know about the Eurovision, which reduces potential material.
- Belgians from the North (see 'Dutch')
- Belgians from the South (see 'French')
- The British love puns and laughing at the Eurovision Song Contest, especially Terry Wogan's legendary commentaries about the contestants.
- Dutch humour is a mixture of British and German
- Danes are similar to Germans except they have a broader sense of humour. They love slap stick. As a point of note, Danish women laugh a lot if they get tickled with bird feathers. Legal note: if you want to try this with anyone avoid using a living bird as it may constitute an animal cruelty or sexual offence.
- The French laugh at most things funny, as long as it is French.
- Germans (See 'Danes')
- The Irish laugh at most things however remotely funny, except Irish 'jokes'. They have a similar sense of humour to British people.
- The Swiss rarely laugh, but when they do it is done very efficiently and like clockwork.
- Greek Cypriots do have a sense of humour which can be scientifically summarised using the formula (Rn + On x 186,000/C) = LV x 12 Where R= Retsina consumed in units per 100ml, O= Ouzo consumed in units per 20ml, C=the speed of light per second and LV = the resulting Laughter Volume in decibels.
- IBM's senior internal and external lawyers, those most excellent species of human being, will often laugh at 'little' international software companies that threaten to sue them...until of course film crews turn up at their head office as part of a commissioned TV documentary . 'IBM nul points'.