Question
What role should humor play in business-to-business marketing programs?
Answer
It should play a strong role in SMB to SMB B2B markets, and no role in big company to big company markets. Small-to-big is a toss up, but on balance I'd say "no" in either direction (big supplying small OR small supplying big).
Before I say why, two examples.
Both are small-medium businesses, selling to other small-medium business (often one-person shows like me; sole proprietors or 1-10 person corporations).
Here's the logic. B2B relationships are based more on corporate than product brand. Companies want SLAs, maintenance, guarantees etc. They'd rather buy a poorer product/service from a provider they know will stick around and take care of them in very personalized/customized ways then a great product that comes with much less reliable support (hence Microsoft vs. Linux or Apple).
So B2B relationships are only as good as the trust the brand represents.
When "humor" is a brand connotation, you get a double-edged sword. You laugh at and with people, not corporations. Humor inevitably involves a personal style. When used in marketing, this style MUST come across as the style of the company as a whole. Dreamhost for example, comes across as a "work hard, play hard, get drunk and party sometimes" kinda company. I don't know if it is entirely true, but it sure comes across that way very believably. My trust in them is based in large part on the fact that I trust people with their kind of sense of humor.
But imagine a 30,000 person company trying to convince me (as a business owner, not consumer) that it has a characteristic sense of humor. No thank you. Not believable, no matter how good the jokes, or how personally funny the biz-dev guy talking to me.
So big companies should aim for a brand that inspires trust based on a shared level of best-faith service and customer-centeredness modeled by all their selling people.
A related reason why big-to-big, small-to-big, or big-to-small doesn't lend itself well to humor is that these relationships are so "kill me now" annoying in the first place, with tons of paperwork and due process. Whereas small-to-small is usually a handshake, a W-9, maybe a 1-page no-brainer-acceptable contract, or an "Accept terms" button, when big gets involved, it's all very unfunny Kafkaesque paperwork all the way. Hard to laugh about it. Especially hard to laugh about it the same way. What humor exists is mutual commiseration of the Dilbert variety.
One day, we may see emotionally-intelligent big company processes. Even then humor won't be overtly a good idea in marketing, but perhaps 1:1 relationships can share an overt laugh instead of a subversive one.
Before I say why, two examples.
- Dreamhost is a hosting company used by a lot of small/microbusinesses like me. There's been tons of complaints about them, yet I stick with them, why? Their newsletter conveys a huge sense of humor about what they are doing.
- Mailchimp is an email list management tool that I use. Again, their marketing is humor based.
Both are small-medium businesses, selling to other small-medium business (often one-person shows like me; sole proprietors or 1-10 person corporations).
Here's the logic. B2B relationships are based more on corporate than product brand. Companies want SLAs, maintenance, guarantees etc. They'd rather buy a poorer product/service from a provider they know will stick around and take care of them in very personalized/customized ways then a great product that comes with much less reliable support (hence Microsoft vs. Linux or Apple).
So B2B relationships are only as good as the trust the brand represents.
When "humor" is a brand connotation, you get a double-edged sword. You laugh at and with people, not corporations. Humor inevitably involves a personal style. When used in marketing, this style MUST come across as the style of the company as a whole. Dreamhost for example, comes across as a "work hard, play hard, get drunk and party sometimes" kinda company. I don't know if it is entirely true, but it sure comes across that way very believably. My trust in them is based in large part on the fact that I trust people with their kind of sense of humor.
But imagine a 30,000 person company trying to convince me (as a business owner, not consumer) that it has a characteristic sense of humor. No thank you. Not believable, no matter how good the jokes, or how personally funny the biz-dev guy talking to me.
So big companies should aim for a brand that inspires trust based on a shared level of best-faith service and customer-centeredness modeled by all their selling people.
A related reason why big-to-big, small-to-big, or big-to-small doesn't lend itself well to humor is that these relationships are so "kill me now" annoying in the first place, with tons of paperwork and due process. Whereas small-to-small is usually a handshake, a W-9, maybe a 1-page no-brainer-acceptable contract, or an "Accept terms" button, when big gets involved, it's all very unfunny Kafkaesque paperwork all the way. Hard to laugh about it. Especially hard to laugh about it the same way. What humor exists is mutual commiseration of the Dilbert variety.
One day, we may see emotionally-intelligent big company processes. Even then humor won't be overtly a good idea in marketing, but perhaps 1:1 relationships can share an overt laugh instead of a subversive one.