Marketing can be is stressful. Take a break! Make the corporate web use hall monitors in IT and HR freak out and wonder what you’re up to. Visit one (or more) of the sites below for a quick laugh, smile, or at least a good eye roll.
Business humor isn’t only Tom Fishburne and Scott Adams (as good as those guys are). Creative brilliance looking for an outlet amid the 18th conference call of the day produces an incredible range of amusing, amazing, and just plain odd content.
What’s not funny—the best business humor hasn’t been showcased here for more than three years! So some of the content below may have slipped into “classic” status, but hopefully it still amuses (or maybe you missed it).
Keep It Interesante
Dos Equis – YouTube
Honesty is the best policy. But ridiculous exaggerations is much more amusing, as Dos Equis shows.
Lady Doritos and Black Tylenol
AdAge
Brand extensions can be a great idea (Tide detergent > Tide Pods…makes sense). Diet Coke. Miller Lite, sure. But…Lady Doritos? Not all micro-targeting is good marketing. But it can be funny, as AdAge demonstrates.
Used 1996 Toyota Commercial
FulariousTV – YouTube
Car commercials use serious-sounding voiceovers, dramatic background music, and rich imagery of cars careening down winding, scenic highways to convince us their assemblages of steel and glass are worth a sum that would have purchased a decent middle-class home in the suburbs not that many years ago. But can a guy use the same effects to sell his girlfriend’s Toyota with 140,000-plus miles on it?
As NOT Seen on Inbound This Week
Growth.org
Inbound.org has published some amazing content over the past few years–posts filled with practical guidance on topics like SEO, CRO, and accelerating business growth. But this sampling is what doesn’t get published on the site (for example: “12 Bad Habits That Can Lead to Hair Loss [Infographic]” and “Best Masticating Juicer — Guide and Reviews 2017”), while it won’t make you smarter, may make you chuckle.
11 Shocking Designs Straight Out of the 90s
Webdesigner Depot
Webdesigner Depot normally showcases the coolest, most cutting-edge website design trends. But in this post, they go the other direction, highlighting almost a dozen examples of putrid, hideous web design even worse than the music from that decade. For example, Arngren. Where to start with this site? How about with the back button.
Mobile app and mobile web usage in realtime
AppInstitute
Not funny per se but kind of cool, this site lets you watch the pace at which mobile web use ticks upward—for example, as (roughly) four million Google searches are performed on mobile devices and 2,852,000 (approximately) new smartphones are sold each minute.
Glossary: What Martech Buzzwords Really Mean
AdAge
As the people at AdAge note, “Attempting to speak with someone who’s fluent in martech is not easy…You might, in the very same sentence, encounter both ‘holistic consumer experience’ and ‘tag management system.’ Although smiling and nodding does help, trying to make sense of what they actually mean is far more effective.” This glossary of martech jargon may be enlightening. Or not.
3 Videos that Use Humanity to Build Trust in a B2B Audience
Skeleton Productions
It’s not clear why B2B marketers need to be frequently reminded that our buyers are people, too! They actually have emotions, feelings, and concerns that go beyond “streamlining processes” and ROI. These videos make the point well. Hootsuite’s “Bring Video into Your Social Family” is a classic.
Remember All The Times You Overshared At Work
Fast Company
Sharing a bit about your life, interests, and family at work is fine! But oversharing…not so much.
The 21 Most Innovative & Creative Ads of the Past Year
HubSpot
Again, these examples aren’t all humorous, but they are all noteworthy—particularly the DB Export ad. Save the planet by drinking more beer? Now there’s a winning sales pitch. The unfortunate inclusion of the “Frank Underwood for President” campaign is reminder of how important timing is. And how quickly lives can change.
7 B2B Companies Making Pretty Funny Content (Plus How They Did It)
SnapApp
Okay, the Dollar Shave Club ad and the Vince Vaughn stock photos have been overexposed (pardon the pun), but some of the other campaigns here are clever and may be less familiar. It’s also worth checking out the behind-the-scenes post for Wistia’s parade video.
Top 10 Hilarious Parody Twitter Accounts
Social Media Delivered
A few of these are no longer active, but accounts like @NotZuckerberg, @OnionSports, and—I’ll just say #2 on this list—are still going strong. And still funny.
Stuff Business People Say
Tripp & Tyler – YouTube
A classic collection of overused business clichés (many also skewered in 31 Shopworn Catch Phrases to Avoid Like the Plague). Even the comments here are worth the scroll, i.e., “We completely forgot to circle back to how viable this is. Bottom line, I just don’t know about the ROI,” and “At the end of the day, we are leading a world class team with metrics above industry standard. So with that I’ll close this meeting early and give you back your 30 minutes.”
How To SOUND Smart When Giving A Presentation
Success @ Creative PR blog
Does it sometimes seem there’s a “TEDx Talk formula”—like people are talking about an incredibly diverse array of subjects, but kind of all in the same way? Comedian Will Stephens memorably gives it away here.
Radimparency
Vooza
Combine the two posts above—buzzwords and jargon startups overuse, plus excessively dramatic delivery and cheesy background music—and you’ve got this classic tech startup video from Vooza.
39 Perfect GIFs For Your Next Presentation
Marketing Insider Group
An incredibly bookmark-worthy collection of GIFs, not all of which are totally overused. Wonder if there’s an update of this post planned? Yeah, that’d be great.
30 Gifs To Inspire Any Social Media Community Manager
Marketing Insider Group
On the off chance you couldn’t find quite the perfect GIF from the collection above, Michael Brenner’s blog presents 30 more covering a range of situations from when “You’ve woken up in a cold sweat thinking you forgot to post something” to “You’re happy to know you have the coolest job in the world.”
Why You Shouldn’t Target Your Marketing: Target Marketing Fails
MarketingSherpa Blog
Targeting your marketing messages is a winning strategy. But it has to be done carefully and thoughtfully. Otherwise, the results can be humorous. Or worse.
A Designer’s Life in 10 Hilarious Cartoons
Creative Market
Professional graphic design is an art. Literally. Most people don’t get it. Those who do are a special breed, worthy of undying admiration and respect. Unfortunately, what they actually get in real business life is more like this.
15 brand new social networks you’ve never heard of but should definitely try
Econsultancy
There are social networking innovators out there, aiming to be the next Facebook or Twitter. But you won’t find those here. Instead, you’ll find “social networks” like “Dunkr. Do you like basketball? Do you like biscuits? Do you like both basketball and biscuits? Great, we have just the social network for you. Do you like either basketball or biscuits but not both? Then get the hell out of here.” Also “Losr, the social network for people who aren’t allowed to join Dunkr.”
5 Minute Management Course
Alibaba
A half-dozen “lessons” about management (and life) told through a series of highly inappropriate stories.
“LinkedIn Out Loud” videos lampoon ludicrous profiles
CIO
Imagine what would happen if some snarky and creative Brits “spent two years collecting the most narcissistic LinkedIn profiles they could find and then gathered a group of actors to read them on camera for a short video series.” Or don’t imagine, just watch the results.
Strategic Humor: Cartoons
Harvard Business Review
Every three months, HBR invites readers to submit captions for cartoons. Here’s a small selection, with links to many more.
Email in Real Life
Tripp and Tyler on YouTube
Misuse of “reply all,” forgotten attachments, neglecting to turn off auto-responder, shouty ALL CAPS messages, and other common email sins creatively captured.
Should Your B2B Marketing Be More Fun? 11 Examples to help you decide
Right Mix Marketing
The short answer is: Yes! Getting humor right (actually being funny without crossing any lines of culture, taste, or propriety) is challenging, but this post provides inspiration with nearly a dozen examples of B2B companies getting it right, from IBM and Intel to the Marketo Big Marketing Activity Coloring Book.
The definitive ranking of 25 horrible brand mascots
iMedia Connection
Most of these are spot-on. No one is going to miss Joe Camel, The Noid (at least suitably named), or creepy Burger King. But have to take issue with including the Kia Hamsters here. Their commercials were actually fun, used some great music (versions included the hamsters dancing to Lady Gaga and Maroon 5), and frankly, we could use a little more messaging like this right now.
Where does reality end and begin? Projection mapping is shifting the boundaries
Aeon
This isn’t humor but it is incredibly creative. And cool. And difficult to describe. But well worth taking five minutes out of your day for. Check it out.
Why B2B Content Doesn’t Trend on Twitter
Audienti
Last but note least—looking for the perfect way to say “I love you!” to that special someone? Cisco has the answer. Yes, Cisco.