Thing is, circumstances change so quickly. Products and fads come and go, new ideas, new ways of looking at things. Opportunities crop up continually, but windows of opportunity don't stay open too long. So there's a massive reason for staying alert and not being too precious about the status quo. Humour can be a great way to challenge things in quite a safe way, and helps to ward against mental laxity at the same time. Makes you better company too, helps to build rapport, then trust ... more about this later
We hunted around for some serious and respectably referenced articles to help us make our point. Having just yesterday banged on about that very thing, we thought we had to. First off we found this piece that correlates the "ha ha of humour with the a-ha of discovery". Creativity and humour go hand in hand, apparently. Should we be surprised by this relationship? Probably not
Next, here's a story about a social experiment on this theme played out with some success on a bewildering scale. The story leads us into the link between the use of humour with the building of trust. It adds another dimension to it all, and one that crosses over into "brand creation". Put simply, strong brands need to be consistent. The more inconsistencies there are in your brand, the less people will trust you. Just like people. You trust people who are consistent with you, you don't (can't) trust people who aren't. What that means for the use of humour within the context of a commercial brand is that you have to be careful about when and how you use it, and you have to use it consistently. To illustrate that point, here are some links to some company sites that have elected to use humour, frivolity even, to define the brand
Check these out and ask yourself "Would I trust these people?"
Tom, Dick + Debbie Productions
Ben & Jerry
Innocent
... bet you would ...
Why do we trust consistency over inconsistency? Simply because the truth is more consistent than lies
The truth is out there ...
