Today is Make People Laugh Day

Was it something I said?

They say that laughter is the language of the world. No matter what your native tongue, everyone speaks laughter.  The late great Victor Borge said that “laughter is the shortest distance between two people.  That being the case and the fact that laughter has been proven to be good medicine (laughter reduces stress, is good for your lungs, improves your immune system and strengthens your heart), then it seems to me it would also be good for business.

So why don’t we laugh more? I think its because we don’t look for the funny. Children laugh as much as 400 times a day and as we mature, we laugh less and less. In fact studies show that adults only laugh about 15 times a day.  Life can be busy and stressful so what better way to stave off the stress than to laugh.

Companies who have figured out how to do that not only create a name for themselves, some even become iconic legends and its also been proven that laughter can add tremendously to a company’s bottom line! 

When I was doing research for this article I immediately recalled the campaign Burger King did in 2004 that went viral seemingly overnight.  Burger King hired The Barbarian Group and Crispin, Porter + Bogusky to create a campaign to promote their TenderCrisp chicken sandwich and their “Have it Your Way” campaign. The result: The Subservient Chicken – a web site that features an actor dressed in a chicken costume who performs visitor’s commands. The campaign featured a viral marketing website, television and print placement and a one time pay-per-view program.

With more than 450 million hits to date the Subservient Chicken campaign resulted in asignificant increase in chicken sales since the campaign first went live. If that is not a Quirky Marketing Idea, I don’t know what is!

In fact, the website is still available for all to see.  Just go to: Subservient Chicken. There are more than three hundred commands that you can get the chicken to “PERFORM” for you.

So what can you do to Make People Laugh and increase your sales? In the article: Get a Laugh and Make the Sale, authors Ron Sathoff and Kevin Nunley offer this advice:

1. Use Observational Humor. A quick quip or witty observation done in good taste will go a long way to ingratiating you in the eyes of your customers. 

2. Make fun of yourself.

3. Be very careful about who your humor makes fun of.  Almost all jokes and one-liners are at the expense of someone.  You don’t want to seem insensitive or accidentally insult a person or group your customer cares about.

Reconsider old favorite jokes before retelling them.  A line that was hilarious in the 1980s might be inappropriate today.  A joke that worked fine in Oklahoma City could get you stared at in San Francisco.

4. Read Humor and share it.  Readers Digest is full of everday humor that can be shared.

5. Remember funny lines you hear on TV and in movies. 

6. Memorize half-a-dozen good one-liners that you can use in everyday conversation with customers (where appropriate).

Need some help with your humor? I recommend the book, Winning with One-Liners: 3,400 Hilarious Laugh Lines to Tickle Your Funny Bone and Spice Up Your Speeches (Paperback) by Pat Williams

Other Notable Events on this Day:

1931 ~ Nevada legalizes gambling

1953 ~ The Academy Awards was televised for the first time with Bob Hope as the host.

1970 ~ The leaders of East Germany and West Germany meet for the first time since the country was divided in 1949 following the end of the second world war.

More great marketing ideas can be found in the Quirky Marketing Calendar ~ How to Use Zany and Non-traditional Holidays to Promote Your Business 365 Days a Year! 

 
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