FOR A SHORT while a few years ago, I worked for a packaging company with an identity crisis. In a fit of existential doubt, the firm employed an expensive branding consultancy to advise it on a new corporate “look and feel”.
We drones shuffled into a room where a woman who looked not unlike Jessica Rabbit asked us a series of questions, aimed at getting to the nub of our collective identity.
Ms Rabbit told us that she was being paid to give the firm a new “tone of voice”. The central question we were posed was: “If the company was a celebrity, which celebrity would it be?”
The bloke next to me thought about this and suggested Charles Hawtrey, the effete, bespectacled British character actor of the 1960s and 1970s, and star of the Carry On films. Three weeks later, my friend didn’t work in packaging anymore.
At the end of the project, Ms Rabbit delivered her expensive findings to the board. The company’s brand identity, she said, (and this is true) “should be more like Jamie Oliver”.
By this I took her to mean we should lighten up a bit in our corporate communications, try to be a bit more engaging. Rather than come across as faceless bureaucrats, don’t be afraid to be “real”.
Now, I won’t have a bad word said against Jamie Oliver. He is kind to children and homeless people and his Andy the Gasman’s Stew has livened up many a Sunday afternoon.
But really? Has Jamie’s chirpy patter really become the voice most likely to win friends and influence people?
Central to this new identity was the strategic use of “banter” and since then, like a fear of heights or enclosed spaces, I’ve become aware of my own weakness in this area.
I’m constantly on my guard against being bantered, which these days is hard. In fact, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s just not possible to avoid banter: it’s the sound of our times.
I’ve come to hate the sound of men laughing. In particular, groups of blokes laughing together in a pub, or worse still, on the radio.
People who run sports radio, in particular, think men laughing adds atmosphere and authenticity to the listening experience.
They laugh at demented phone-in callers, or banter with the news guys at the end of a bulletin, or on Saturday morning quiz shows.
But rather than endear me, it just makes me want to make like Van Gogh with the bread knife.
This is not joyous laughter, which is a wonderful sound. It’s laughter used as a weapon, and this same teasing tone of the playground bully has pervaded almost every area of public life.
What’s worse, banter has become industrialised. For this I blame Innocent smoothies with their jaunty, jolly hockey sticks copywriting style. This wasn’t just orange juice, it was your best mate who was always there for you.
“We’re not saying that there’s anything wrong with going for a gym workout. It’s just, you know, all a bit of an effort really, isn’t it? If I were you, I’d just have an Innocent smoothie instead.”
Oliver Bose, a copywriting expert summed up the issue well: “The basic philosophy we espouse as copywriters is problematic in some way. The kind of chummy, childish copy that infuriates people isn’t an aberration, but the inevitable outcome of the principles we advocate to our clients every day. Ditch the formality, talk like human beings, write as though you’re talking to your mum or best friend. You’re not a business talking to a mass audience, you’re a person chatting to another person.”
But it’s only orange juice right? Nobody gets hurt. Why don’t you do what Jessica Rabbit told you to do, and lighten up?
The problem with Innocent is that they were too good at the spiel and everyone copied them.
Take the latest sexist denim story: a pair of jeans that come complete with a washing label that says: “Machine wash warm. Inside out with like colours. Use only non-chlorine bleach. Tumble dry medium. Medium hot iron. Do not iron print. Or, GIVE IT TO YOUR WOMAN. It’s her job.”
British utility firm Anglian Water send out its bills with chirpy, “Oh no it’s a bill, but don’t worry ’cos we’re looking out for you” copy on the envelope.
But being against banter is to be accused of the greatest sin imaginable. I’m fully expecting a case of orange juice to jump from the fridge with a message plastered over the carton: “You know what your problem is? You can’t take a joke.”
Great banter, that.