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Demand-Geniuses is the podcast for revenue-focused B2B Marketers. We bring you the latest insights and expert tips, interviewing geniuses of the B2B Marketing world to bring you actionable advice that you can implement to accelerate growth and progress you career. The role of Marketing in B2B go-to-market strategy has changed drastically. It's more important to revenue generation than ever as buyer engagement becomes more digital. We equip you with the information you need to thrive in this new, revenue-critical role.
Tom Rudnai (00:00)
Let's talk about humour a little bit because I it's a really hard thing to bring into B2B and some people try, some people do it horribly. I guess talk about how do you consistently bring humour to what is typically more professional, dry topics? Are there frameworks or ways of...?
Culturally creating like the freedom to yeah, I don't quite know what my question is, but talk about humor
Esther Dawson (00:24)
Mmm.
Well, all right. I think there's
a lot of facets to it because what you touch on right at the end there is yes, you have to create a culture of it. And that culture also starts with the humans, right? And so like the humans within the business. So if you're a group of people who are like have a laugh or humor is a part of your work culture, it makes sense sometimes to bring that into your brand as well because it can feel quite natural. And if you're bringing say staff into videos and content, then they can also exist.
and
that in a nice natural way. So yeah, having the appetite to experiment is really important with humor because yes, sometimes you do try and you miss or you fail and that's not a reason to not keep doing it, you just have to try again. Also, having content partners that you work with who really get it is important. My tiny little interesting tidbit is that I was actually hired by this company from my family business because they were a client.
the video production agency, which is my family business, we'd made videos for this company and then when I moved over they were like, great, we'll get her. Which was very flattering but the sense there is they already had this appetite for humor and they'd created some content with this agency and so I kind of just came in and continued that on and we were lucky because our creative partners, the people who directing the videos just had like a really good innate sense of how humor flows and they've done it heaps of times.
I think you can learn from the people around you, people who can already do it well. That's probably the two aspects of it, I think, is finding people who know how to do it well and working with them and then making sure you create an appetite or culture within the company that allows for it. Otherwise you end up just like creating content that's quite cringe or quite like trend focused or just like meme based and it doesn't work. You know what I mean. We've all seen it.
Tom Rudnai (02:21)
I know exactly, I wrote down into the talk, how do
you avoid it being cringe? And I think there's so many times that that's what I see being the result of people trying to be funny on LinkedIn.
Esther Dawson (02:31)
Yeah, well maybe.
I think one of the aspects is like the person creating the content has to have a sense of humor themselves. Like you can't hire someone and just be like, be funny, you know, like they've got to have, yeah, they've got to have like some innate sense of that themselves. I think an example of this, which, you know, like almost overused, but Surreal, the serial brand, like they do really, really funny content on LinkedIn. And that's because they have a really funny copywriter, John Thornton, who basically I think has brought a lot of himself to
Tom Rudnai (02:41)
We'll try that.
Yeah.
Esther Dawson (03:04)
role and I know there's risks in that you know when you hire someone and then if they leave the company do they take that humor with them and maybe so but that's where the best natural humor comes from I think you hire people who have that within themselves
Tom Rudnai (03:21)
Well, and if you're giving them creative, like if someone if what someone enjoys is being funny, you're giving them creative freedom to be funny, then they're probably going to stay because they're doing that, right? So through the culture, that that's a retention mechanism.
Esther Dawson (03:31)
Totally.
Exactly
and then also it's really important to not push humor where it doesn't fit Like I talk a lot about us being like humor led, but to be honest, you know We're also dealing with a pretty serious topic safety on construction sites and we don't push the humor where it doesn't need to be like You know if we're talking about the product or the product features like we keep that pretty grounded and pretty direct and factual You know if we're talking about a serious topic, we're not gonna try and lighten the mood. It's just that
Humor works really well when it's relatable, relatable to your industry. And the reason we've chosen to do it is construction sites are full of humor. You go on a construction site, people are laughing and joking all the time. And so we want them to see themselves in the brand and feel seen. And there's that sense of relatability, which I think is perhaps the best way to, like that's the best place to couch your humor from that position of relatability.
Tom Rudnai (04:32)
Yeah, it's funny. makes me think of, remember talking to someone and I forget the name now, but they were talking about a great campaign that they ran in cyber security where cyber security is like the archetype of boring, dry, everything is dark blue and gray and then the cyber security and everything is serious. It's all incredibly important. And what they realized they did some kind of research into the humans that actually work in that role of CISO, Chief Information Security Officer. I'm really, it's incredible like gallows humor that they build up.
Esther Dawson (04:46)
yeah.
Mm.
Tom Rudnai (05:02)
between
themselves to talk about the constant panic and anxiety that is their jobs and they ran a campaign which was basically I think it was like talking about the old f*** moment when someone messes up and opens an email they shouldn't have which I actually did once so I can resonate very strongly with that. They said it was their best campaign which yeah
Esther Dawson (05:14)
Yeah.
I was saying. Yes. But
it's emotion based too though isn't it? I think that's the thing with humour is that humour makes you laugh and so then you've got this kind of emotional connection with the piece of content you've just consumed. And New Zealand is really known for this with our Air New Zealand ads. Have you seen those, like the safety campaigns on flights?
Tom Rudnai (05:42)
I think so, it really can help.
Esther Dawson (05:45)
I like to think it's globally known, but maybe I'm wrong. Anyway, we lean hard into that and I think that's maybe also what I've been influenced by is humor can be really memorable and strategically that's just a really good move.
Tom Rudnai (06:01)
Yeah. Are there particular areas of your content or your brand that you found you can quite naturally fit the humour in? Like you said, you don't try and force it in everywhere. Are there trends to where it works and where it doesn't other people can maybe learn from?
Esther Dawson (06:18)
Yeah, I think humor works really well at the brand awareness level. So like the first impression moment when people come across you for the first time, partly because it ties into that sense of being memorable. But we use a lot of humor in like brand videos, the ones that are slightly more, well, they're more highly produced, higher quality because we want to tell a story. So we usually lead it with characters. It's usually very relatable and quite funny for the industry.
Tom Rudnai (06:22)
Yeah.
Esther Dawson (06:46)
Yeah, we deliberately create moments for laughter or they're like, my goodness, me too. I've felt that. And so I think, yeah, that brand stage is a really good place for it to happen. then the other places we weave it in is when we're talking about pain points. you know, just I've just finished reviewing all of our website copy and the places where human most naturally fits is that moment where like, you know, you've formed an unhealthy relationship with the printer because you're standing there all the time printing docs.
you know and so it's just like small subtle pieces yeah does that answer the question?
Tom Rudnai (07:23)
Yeah, it does. it's because the pain point one is a really good point because it's relatable and empathetic and I always struggle. mean, I'm by no means a copywriter, but even when you're kind of that like sales thing or the marketing when I want to have like, I'm on the pain point, but you feel like a dick. It feels really annoying sometimes when when I have people talking to me about my pain points and they're really going in, it's very
Esther Dawson (07:28)
Yeah.
compete.
And patronizing, I think it's pretty easy to lean into the patronizing side and you've gotta be careful about that. So I think humor is a helpful way to just keep it bit lighter. But also the like, we know what it's like. mean, ultimately you'll talk about pain points because you want them to know that you know what it's like and there's a reason that you exist. There's a solution you have. So yeah, I agree with you. It's like when you have pain points hammered down your throat and you're the person being sold to, it's not always a nice experience.
Tom Rudnai (07:47)
Yeah.
Yeah. And I remember a called Pete Crosby when my first sales job, he was kind of teaching like the art of how you build a presentation. It's like there's seven steps. And the idea is you take people on a bit of a roller coaster of why there is this problem. But a very important step in that is to explain that the problem isn't their fault. It's not them that's creating the problem. They are like, it's ubiquitous. Everyone in that position has this problem. You understand it. And there's no better way to integrate that empathy and understanding than
Esther Dawson (08:21)
Mmm.
Mm.
Yeah.
Tom Rudnai (08:45)
A little joke will speak more than a thousand words and platitudes on that front, right? The other thing, go back to the cultural thing a little bit more, because I think that's, and I imagine there's marketers listening to this thinking that sounds like great fun, I'd love to work for a like that, I'd love to implement that here, but you have to go and create that buy-in. So did you come in with that mandate, and if not, how did you go about kind of...
Esther Dawson (08:49)
Mm. Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Tom Rudnai (09:11)
building the buy-in above you within the organization that meant that when probably you missed the mark a couple of times that the buy-in was still there and you were okay with this.
Esther Dawson (09:20)
Mmm.
Well...
I am lucky and I wish I didn't have to say I'm lucky but I think not many companies already have this attitude towards openness towards creativity but when I joined it was very much a conversation with the leadership team who were like yes we want this, we already, they'd already made some videos that were human led so they had an appetite for it already. And I guess if I'm being frank I don't think I would have joined a company who weren't open to it from the start. I think it's really hard.
Tom Rudnai (09:53)
Yeah.
Esther Dawson (09:54)
hard work to come into a company and build a culture of openness around humor if there's resistance to it in the first place. And honestly, I might not have bothered. I just think that's kind of already got to exist from the top because it's pretty hard to change people's minds if they've got a perspective about like the personality of the brand in terms of like it's this and it's never gonna be anything different. So yeah, there was a good attitude that already existed here. And then now what I try to do is as we get
bigger it's much it's harder to be humorous when you get bigger because you you get concerned about being unprofessional like there's definitely this perspective that humor doesn't equal professional I disagree with that but there are ways in which you like you have to be careful about it but as you're trying to appeal to bigger clients and people you know boards and like bigger decision makers yeah the risk appetite can diminish and so now my job
is like how do we keep the confidence there? And you have to keep the confidence by proving that it's working, right? So every time people are mentioning like I noticed you because of the humor or the personality or I see you everywhere and it makes me laugh. Like those are nuggets that I collect and can use when I talk to other people. Yeah, but I just have to say like the leadership team and the whole group of decision makers at Brick Cromer really up for it to try new things and take risks with.
how we communicate the brand, which I love. It's great.
Tom Rudnai (11:26)
Do
you put, so as you try to scale that, do you try to define your humor at all or constrain it? Because I guess you have to build some. It has to be a little bit more Michael McIntyre than Jimmy Carr, doesn't it? I guess that's...
Esther Dawson (11:36)
Yeah.
Yeah, totally. Yeah, that's a really great question. Yes,
so going through this rebrand, one of the ways that we've done that is...
We've got some clarity around that we want to lean into more kind of witty humor as opposed to jokester humor. So I guess that means timing it well and not just inserting humor wherever you want. It's less about making puns and cracking a joke and more about wordplay or I suppose puns are wordplay, they? The clever listeners will point that out. But you know what I mean. So it sits more on that witty side as opposed to the kind of slapstick.
the joking side. So that's the differentiation we've recently made and I think you're so right that that's really important because otherwise one person's version of funny is totally different to another person's version of funny.
Tom Rudnai (12:33)
Have you played around at all and if so have you had any success with AI generated humor?
Esther Dawson (12:42)
Not personally, mean, I really don't like relying on AI from the creative standpoint. But you know, like everyone.
we use it in a small capacity for copywriting. So yes, you can feed in your brand personality and if you've got really good guidelines to start with, that can help. I read a really fascinating article from a content manager that I follow who does a really great job with her brand personality and she was saying that they inputted their tone of voice guidelines into ChatGBT, I think, and used that to write up their case studies and she said it required a lot of work to train it to a point that she felt confident that when it started spitting
back lines that really felt like they had written it. That's when she knew that they kind of got to a good place. So yeah, I think we'll play with that more as we go, but not heaps of stories about it yet.
Tom Rudnai (13:37)
Yeah, okay, no, I was curious because the way you said you could define like there is to an extent a science to what is funny, right? So it seems one day and I could in theory do but I don't think I like that idea. How do you find it?
Esther Dawson (13:45)
yeah.
Yeah, neither.
Tom Rudnai (13:55)
One thing I find quite intimidating actually about having a brand identity like that is I think on a good date I'd find that very easy, I'd be having fun. How do you find it on a bad day when you know you have to produce this blog or this post but you're not feeling very funny that day? Are there ways that you get around that?
Esther Dawson (13:59)
Hmm.
Hmm.
Well, we should ask this question of my content manager, who's the one who's actually doing a lot more of the writing these days than I am. I mean, if you can sit on it, that helps. I think always with content creation, it's much better if you're not doing it last minute so you don't have a chance to sleep on it and come back to it because perspective really helps with humor. Because sometimes when you feel in a rut, it's not actually that the work you're producing is bad, it's just that your attitude about it
it's just off, you know, you'll write something and it'll be like, ugh, that sucks. Then you get back to the next day and you're like, actually it didn't suck, but I've had a moment to think about it and now I'm happy with it. So giving yourself space is probably the most helpful thing.
Tom Rudnai (14:43)
and then.
Nice, that's a good, yeah, that's a good advice. Are there moments when this culture that you've built has been kind of tested? I'd imagine there are times when you've put something out, I guess it can go one of two ways, right? Either trying too hard to be funny and was, you know, may have crossed a line or just really close to being bad. And I guess how did you react when it was tested like that?
Esther Dawson (15:13)
Hmm.
I have a great example of this, which actually I can't really take the credit for it. The concept was my colleague in Australia, but I don't know if you've heard of the brand Budgie Smuggler, but they basically create swimwear under underpants, I guess, for men. And that's the brand name. But they also create a whole bunch of other swimwear and they were doing a competition where you could win like a billboard slot if you took the most creative photo with their branded swimwear. And so my colleague got a bunch of the team to a beach
Tom Rudnai (15:45)
Thank
Esther Dawson (15:50)
with a photographer and they were all wearing swimwear and posing and I It's really it's like still our most engaged with post and so this is a really interesting thing Massive risk some people within the team were like that's just not I'm not into it. I don't want to do it Like that's not my vibe other people obviously up for it and were like I'll post in the photo and so I mean, I don't even quite know where I'm going with this. I guess it's like Definitely didn't please everyone, but it was really engaging would we do it again? Maybe not
but I think the thing with humor is that you definitely will never get uniform kind of like approval and enthusiasm from people and so you kind of you just have to shoot your shot anyway and give it a go but I do think when you're creating something that you feel like is this is this right getting a few other people in the room to validate it and check it is always a good idea
Tom Rudnai (16:45)
So in that example where you said maybe some people didn't like it, did you outside of a few LinkedIn comments at the time or wherever it was of people saying, I don't like this, did you actually have any negative consequences from it? think some noise is instantly loud, but nothing actually bad happens.
Esther Dawson (16:58)
no.
No, and I mean, we actually didn't even have any negative
LinkedIn con. And it was a conversation starter more than anything. I also just think like...
We're not the kind of company that would put something polarizing out there that's not our style. And we think carefully about how we're gonna communicate our message. Yeah, there's a lot of like good strategic thought within the company and everyone has like a pretty good sense of what's gonna work and what's not. I also think having come from public relations, I did a lot of like crisis management. I think I have a good nose for the things that are, you know, we should steer away from versus like lean into. Yeah.
Tom Rudnai (17:39)
Yeah.
Esther Dawson (17:40)
something that should be back in the back of your mind when you create content, just thinking through the consequences of stuff but not allowing that to stifle your creativity.
Tom Rudnai (17:49)
Yeah, well, I think it's just difficult in this world. I'm always conscious of too many cooks have a very bad impact on creativity, but you need some level of oversight, I guess, particularly as the stakes get higher.
Esther Dawson (17:55)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, you've got to have, yeah, you've got to have the decision maker, the one who will cop the blame, I guess, if it goes wrong, but having some trusted voices is really useful.