Aamir Thinks: Why humour belongs in internal communications.
- AB
- 5 days ago
- 2 min read
"When people laugh, their guard drops" - Aamir Akudi, AB Communications Account Manager.
There’s a pattern I've noticed over the years – I like to think I’m a fairly funny guy, but I still hesitate a little when we pitch humour to a client. Not because I don’t believe in it, but I’m always half-expecting the usual questions that come up. “Is it appropriate?” “Will it land with everyone?” and “Will anyone take it seriously?”
And then something like the TfL Office Etiquette comes up, and I’m reminded exactly why humour works so well – when it’s done right.
The campaign creative was built around cartoon-like characters – exaggerated, recognisable stereotypes of office life. The colleague who books a meeting room for half a day and never turns up, while someone who needs it ends up in a corner of the canteen. The one who talks loudly about their personal life in the office – yes, we now all know your boyfriend dumped you and how you’re “absolutely fine about it”. And the person who spots a broken chair quietly moves it out of the way and leaves the next poor soul to discover it the hard way. It's all very familiar.
None of the creative was subtle. It also wasn’t trying to be super-polished or overly clever. But people stopped to look at it. They talked about it. They started recognising themselves – and others, in it. And that kind of organic conversation is something a well-worded all-staff email just doesn’t tend to create (you know the one that ‘needs’ to be signed off by 100 people and still has a typo in it)
What I keep coming back to is this: humour isn’t the “this will never work internally” option. It’s often the more effective one. When people laugh, their guard drops a bit. They’re not being told off or managed; they’re just seeing something familiar and relatable. And that’s a pretty powerful place to land a message in a busy workplace.
So next time we’re in a room with a client, I won’t hesitate to ask the question - “What’s stopping us from using humour here?”
Drop me a line if you want to talk about injecting a touch more humour into your internal communications.
