Comedy is the new rock and roll isn’t it?

That is what all of the think pieces in newspapers and on the internet keep telling us, so it must be true. That means that people who are not at all funny think that they can muck about in the shallow end of comedy and use it for corporate gain.

Comedy has long been used in advertising, with very mixed results. Some of them were stone-cold classics but for every Harry Enfield shouting “Armadillos!” there is a Flo & Joan receiving death threats for their Nationwide ads. (This is true, well done internet. I am being sarcastic by the way.)

The issue here is that comedy is subjective. If you doubt that then remember that Mrs Brown’s Boys won another award recently. I am not going to get into the elitism argument, I understand that it is popular and I am pleased that it makes some people happy, but that does not mean that it should win awards. Awards are meant to be for things that break new ground, excel in their field and so on.

Cows using Excel in a field is now in my head. That could be a funny advert, but it would be a hard cell.* I am sure there is a joke about spreadsheets and butter but I can’t be bothered going down that slippery slope. 

What I am more concerned by is the sort of jokey bonhomie that many brands are now trying. Particularly a lot of newer companies, the problem is that they probably did it when they were starting, but they would probably have a hardcore of customers who ‘got’ it. 

As a company gets bigger then they are inevitably going to find customers who like their products but find their jokes a bit off-kilter. This is prevalent in healthier foods for some reason, vegan sausages that say words like ‘Bangin’ bangers’ or nuts that say things “We are nuts about nuts!”

People who make up things like this should be made to read nothing else for a month. If they don’t hate it at the end of that period then it is good to go. I consider myself harsh but fair.

Innocent smoothies are a good example of this. Once upon a time, they were a small company making bottles of fruit-based drinks for a fairly trendy audience. Now they are a honking great monolith that is part of the Coca Cola corporation. 

Now some people say that corporations are evil, I do not entirely agree. They are more like sharks, they are startlingly good at what they are designed to do, which is making money and stuff everything else. 

The only way that you will get a corporation to stop doing something is to make it hard for them to make money from it. Imagine asking a shark for the time, and they would not be able to help. Not least as they have no wrists so the straps would just fall off their fins. Why would you even do that? Think about it.

A small company can change tack quite quickly if something does not work, as they only make things in small numbers. Larger businesses, however, have to make products months in advance, and for them to change direction it is like trying to turn around a supertanker in heavy weather. It takes a long time, and there are usually copious amounts of vomit. 

I was forced to listen to a new digital radio station the other day, well new to me anyway, called Union Jack radio. They play requests of British only music and play out excerpts of only British comedy. 

Which is as Brexit as fuck, by the way.

On a DAB radio in a car, they use the cycling text to put up hilarious ‘jokes’, and most of them are truly painful. Worse still is that as there is only a small amount of bandwidth for text it comes back around pretty quickly. Hilarious things like “INSERT FUNNY JOKE HERE!” and “Thank you for fiddling with your knob and finding us.”

Oh, my funny bone may just explode into its constituent parts. Do not ask to see my funny bone, as that sort of thing isn’t allowed on social media nowadays.

Repeat a joke too often and what you have is no longer a joke, but a pain-inducing collection of words. 

If you doubt this go and see the reaction to the Npower Stand up adverts from a few years ago. There is a reason that there are no cover versions of stand up routines*¹. Unless you go to a few open mic nights anyway. If you do, you will see someone doing a version of a famous stand up routine pretty quickly. Usually pretty badly, but their mate at works says they are funny so they are going to be the next Jason Manford. 

Spoiler: This does not generally happen.

The issues are even more evident if you look at the fast paced world of Twitter. Companies realise that they pretty much have to have a presence these days, and they have a few choices. They can try to be a friendly and helpful account that deals with customer complaints, they can just set up a Twitter account and just not use it. At least this means that no one else can use their name. They could simply use it to post adverts and offers, but the days of one way communication are long behind us now, this is going to make them seem out of touch and old fashioned.

Another option is to have a laugh and a joke with their customers, this is where it gets dicey. In a diced carrot kind of a way. 

In a diced carrot accidentally spilt in custard kind of a way. 

Which is then set on fire.

Then put in a wicker basket.

In a small room with a gas leak.

Sometime ago Thames link, who is a British train company made a Tweet about their service being not very good and comparing it to Poundland cooking chocolate. Now, if you know anything at all about British train companies you will know that they are almost all unremittingly shit and expensive. Which is not an optimal combination is it? 

You can sort of have a blind spot if a company is bad but their prices are really good. Whack both together though and people are less forgiving. Odd, it seems people react badly to feeling that they are being ripped off. 

Poundland, on the other hand, is a very successful bargain shop. No really, Poundland is great. It is a bit like shopping inside someone else’s fever dreams. Any shop that can sell shampoo, foreign sweets and toilet rolls with their logo printed on every sheet is crazy and is the kind of future Britain that I think we should all be working towards in these uncertain times.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, (He said, casually glancing back up to the previous paragraph) so Poundland was made aware of this Tweet and they responded in possibly the best way, they pointed out Thames Links flaws, in a slightly jokey way, told of something that their staff did that day which was above and beyond. Finally, they signed off by saying that they would like Thames Link to delete the Tweet if ‘..you don’t want to hear from our extremely twitchy legal team.’

The Tweet has since been deleted. One-nil to Poundland I believe.

A place that I used to work had a canteen, and one of the parts of it was for baked (Not naked as I typed the first time. I think I have issues.) potatoes and different fillings for them. All good. I like a jacket potato, wholesome warming food on a cold day. What’s not to like?

It was called:

“Jackets, and no ties.”

FUCK OFF. Once you have fucked off then fuck off further.

I hope whoever thought of that didn’t fall down a flight of stairs. 

Then be dragged back up and pushed back down again. Nope, I could not condone that sort of behaviour. Not me.

If it were to happen though, video evidence is a must. Obviously. That happening would be awful, but karma is not always nice.

Some of you reading this article may well have had a wry chuckle or two, maybe even a guffaw. (Who doesn’t like a guffaw? Terrorists that’s who.)

Others will be reading it and wondering what the hell is going on. That is more likely, I am fully aware of that. My readers are often unsure of what they or I are doing. I like that in a reader, makes them more pliable and easily confused. 

Making comedy is not for everyone. Now in the case of this post, for example, you can just ignore it if you don’t like it or you could, of course, send me abuse and death threats on the internet. This does seem to be de rigueur these days.

In an ephemeral medium like this, what impact does you not finding it funny have on your day? I would hazard very little on balance. 

Stick that joke on an advert that is always on the TV, advertising hoardings, Radio and the internet and suddenly that joke seems more grating than Piers Morgan in a grater factory. Squirted with lemon juice.

By all means businesses do try and be humorous but be prepared that sometimes you will get it wrong. Anyone who is involved in comedy will accept that some things will just not work the way that you had hoped. 

Businesses do not have that kind of leeway. 

* ‘Cell’ is spelt correctly here, it is a joke based on cells in spreadsheets. How many people give you Microsoft Office based gags eh?

*¹ I am aware that there have been cover versions of comedy routines and shows, but I suspect they are all best ignored, aren’t they?

Here is an article about the Thames Link vs Poundland Twitter spat. It’s more one sided than Alan vs Predator.

https://news.sky.com/story/poundland-and-thameslink-in-chocolate-tweet-spat-11390473