Notice I said “levity,” not “funny” which is a much higher bar.

Still, it often takes guts as much as creativity to bring levity to a brand’s storytelling. And if you can tap into a recent happenstance, you’ve got the makings for a story to reach the masses.

I’ve come to call this “improv marketing” with one of the best-known examples being the Oreo tweet during the Super Bowl blackout.

It’s one thing to be nimble in serving up a clever tweet.

It’s another to create a mini campaign with levity in less than 48 hours to leverage a breaking news story. That’s exactly what Zappos pulled off after Kanye West’s beat down of Zappos CEO Tony Hseih during a podcast with author Brett Easton Ellis on Nov. 18. The next day E Online reported on West’s cathartic moment:

“I got into this giant argument with the head of Zappos that he’s trying to tell me what I need to focus on. Meanwhile, he sells all this s–t product to everybody, his whole thing is based off of selling s–t product,” West stated.

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I think we all can agree this isn’t a key message for Zappos.

Twenty-four hours later, Zappos went live with a new product line inspired by Mr. West:

Put yourself in the shoes – cue the groan for the bad pun – of Zappos’ brand shepherds. They had two obvious choices:

• Do nothing: Name calling from Kayne West isn’t going to torpedo Cole Haan sales.
• Call some friendly journalists: Zappos and Tony Hseih could have made a withdrawl from the media karma bank, sharing their side of the story and perhaps offering West a “buy one pair of shoes, get a second pair of free of charge” coupon

Instead, they recognized that “improv marketing” could actually turn West’s harsh words in a brand-building exercise. And it took guts to execute on this campaign because any time you push the envelope, you are going to alienate a percent of people.

Like this guy/gal who counseled the Zappos CEO to grow up:

Imso A
from United States

“Get a life, Tony Hsieh. You’re the CEO of a huge company, it’s time to act like it. This is severely immature and I will be sure to never purchase anything from your company again.”
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The campaign reflects the Zappos ethos – this is a company that calls out “create fun and a little weirdness” as a core value – so if some are turned off like “Imso A,” Zappos probably figures they’re not the target audience anyway.

Effective branding is often a polarizing force. It’s the dull middle you want to avoid.

And nothing cuts through dull like levity as demonstrated by the branding work from Zappos last week.

I came across this video “Never Estimate the Power of a Great Story” back in 2009.

Even knowing the ending, the humor still slaps you across the face.

After a recent watch, I realized the video delivers a few pain-free lessons in business storytelling.

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Sure, the protagonist manages to escape death several times — machine guns, a cut-down tree, a waterfall that looks like Niagara Falls and a circular saw — but there are some classic storytelling techniques at work:

1. Creating drama calls for bad stuff to happen to the main character: Naturally, companies struggle with this one. Communication professionals are schooled in telling positive stories and when “negatives” do surface, the work goes into how to diffuse, not accentuate, the “negatives.” Yet, without the bad stuff, there is no drama.

2.  Exaggeration: Whether it’s words or visuals, exaggeration catches the viewer’s attention. I think of  these as “what the hell” moments. When the protagonist in the video is hugging the tree and you hear the chain saw scream to life, you’re thinking “what the hell.”

3. Incongruity: The dictionary defines this word as “strange because of not agreeing with what is usual or expected.” I love this storytelling technique. When the video shows the protagonist down to his boxers being engulfed in some type of wooden box, it’s definitely incongruent. By the way, this technique is particularly effective in the B2B world where elements from everyday life are often incongruent with a given industry.

4. The unexpected: As you wind your way toward the conclusion of the video (second 54), the last thing you expect is our boy rationalizing to the husband how he ended up in the closet.

5. Levity: As shared before, I view levity as the killer app for business communications. Because companies tend to take themselves so seriously, giving the reader/viewer/listener a reason to simply smile is a winning action.

It’s true that the production quality of the Canal+ video also played a role in the narrative. Filming a guy dodging bullets takes serious money.

Still, the techniques in the video hold relevance for business communicators.

Like the bad things encountered by the main character in the video, the negative occurrences in a company offer opportunities to share narratives that the outside world will care about. Have you ever watched a movie or read a novel where everything went according to plan?

Of course not.

Perfection bores people.

For PR types and brand builders, it’s a matter of teasing out those negative occurrences in stories that have happy endings. For more on this topic, check out “The ‘F’ Word in Business Communications.”