By Ned Barnett/Barnett Marketing Communications
Lieutenant Savik, a Vulcan Starfleet officer from "Star Trek" fame, found "humor" a difficult concept. Her observation should be "required reading" for all those who are
responsible for corporate communications. Humor can be very powerful - but it always runs the risk of offending somebody.
Subway recently learned - the hard way - just how big a risk humor can be.
Humor - especially shocking humor - can be effective at grabbing peoples' attention. But humor is frequently based on jokes that make fun of people - and some people just
don't like to be the butt of jokes. That's no problem for comics - they play to audiences who appreciate their brand of humor. However, potentially offensive humor can turn into
a huge problem for corporate communicators.
Business humor has always been a risk. Until recently that risk could be limited by focusing on narrow markets unlikely to be offended. With the Internet - plus scanners, DVD
recorders, cell phone and digital cameras - there are no more "safe" narrow markets. You've got to assume that any message told to one small target group has actually been told
to every potential target group.
The rules have changed - and the risk of offending at least some vocal constituents has shot off the charts. As Savik said, humor is a difficult concept - but the value of
avoiding self-inflicted crises, now that's easy to understand.