Download
1 / 62
620 likes | 629 Vues
Business Humor. by Don L. F. Nilsen and Alleen Pace Nilsen. Business Trends. Creative Advertising. Toilet paper Advertisement: https://www.youtube.com/embed/V_gOZDWQj3Q?rel=0. More Creative Advertising. This finger on a statue is pointing to a particular hotel in Stockholm, Sweden.
E N D
Business Humor by Don L. F. Nilsen and Alleen Pace Nilsen
Toilet paper Advertisement: https://www.youtube.com/embed/V_gOZDWQj3Q?rel=0
This finger on a statue is pointing to a particular hotel in Stockholm, Sweden
CREATIVE HONDA AD: https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/Dxy4n0UT82o?rel=0
BUSINESSES ARE NOW LOOKING FOR NEW APPROACHES An Office at Google 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. • 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.
MOTIVATION: PROFIT VS. PURPOSE; LEVELING THE HIERARCHY (e.g. Internet, Wikipedia, Skype, Facebook, Google, Southwest…): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc&feature=relmfu
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.
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 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.
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 expression, 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.
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.”
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.
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.
Southwest Airlines Boarding Information: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxNrizGdhtY&app=desktop
Jimmy John’s Sandwich Shops are successful because of their quirky humor.
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.
DILBERT STREAMING: http://www.youtube.com/user/dilbert
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.”
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.”
Before a three-day-weekend, the State Highway Department uses humor by putting lighted warnings on major highways:
Cheap Flights: http://www.youtube.com/embed/HPyl2tOaKxM
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.
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.
An Advertisement for Coke (Coca Cola): THE HAPPINESS MACHINE: http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=lqT_dPApj9U
Match the Slogans with the Products Rice Krispies Schlitz Beer Serutan American Florist Assoc. Maxwell Coffee Morton Salt Lifebuoy Soap • 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
Creative spelling made these names memorable and helped with trademark protection. Some Early Examples More Recent Examples Aspercreme Dunkin’ Donuts Haggar Expand-o-matic Kwik Kopy Playskool Sominex Whataburger Wolverine Durashocks • Kwik • ReaLemon • Reddi-Wip • Ry-Krisp • Krispies • Tastee-Freez • Toys “Я” Us • U-Haul
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
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.
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.
