Or do you? Are you just a little guilty of playing it too safe in your marketing?
You know by now I don’t like the John Lewis advert. I also cannot abide most musicals.
However, I do LOVE the range of ads out this Christmas that aren’t afraid to be a bit cheeky. To stand out. To show their personality.
As marketers and business owners we can learn a lot from these campaigns. Granted, it is horses for courses, I wouldn’t expect John Lewis to start parodying merrily, anymore than I’d expect to see Aldi spending mega bucks on something flashy but it does show where a sense of humour can come into play to great effect with your marketing.
Even John Lewis themselves have seen the funny side and joined in to show they are are good sports, which is of course is on brand for them.
I think there is a huge opportunity for smaller businesses to inject a bit more personality into their PR.
I primarily work with experts. I help them to show what they know.
The problem is, it is all too easy to fall into the trap of playing it too safe with your messaging and your tone. It is absolutely fine if that is your market and your market responds well to this but I can guarantee that it drives editors up the wall when they receive expert comment on a key topic and they all sound the same.
This means they will probably not get used – it is just noise.
That may be because they have been filtered through the marketing teams and then onto someone with good intentions of brand value protection but there is a balance to be had between playing it safe and frankly, being boring. The latter rarely make much headway in PR terms if they are competing with bigger brands for the same market with the same message and the same method.
A sense of humour helps you stand out. Don’t be afraid to try it when appropriate. This is from a man who sent 100 tins of Spam in the mail as part of a GDPR marketing campaign and as Elton said….I’m still standing.