​Hello, all you creatives out there! Here’s a question for you: When—if ever—can you have fun with a serious topic? 
 
Are there lines you shouldn’t cross? How blurry are they? 
 
In this article, we’d like to touch on that topic. Spoiler alert: Yes you can, and sometimes you should. 
 
A financial inspiration
 
This article was inspired by a recent assignment of ours. We need to obscure some of the details here, but the gist of it was this: We were writing social ads for a client that were directed toward banking executives. Specifically, we were tasked with promoting a new technology that allowed these banking executives to better deal with all of the onerous regulatory and compliance burdens of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which is known in the banking world simply as “SOX.” 
 
Maybe we were just feeling punchy. But we needed a can-you-relate grabber headline. And it needed to be super short, because social ads, although tiny, have a ton in common with massive freeway billboards (we wrote a nice article on this topic, if you’d like to check it out). 
 
Anyway, before we knew it, we’d written down: 
 
SOX SUX. 
 
Dumb, right? But it still makes us laugh. 
 
Before we knew it, the ad got laid out, with that headline (among others; this was a campaign), and went live. Importantly, 1) our client approved it, and 2) it pulled. 
 
Which begs the question: Did we overstep our bounds? 
 
Define the line
 
We’re probably not going to reel in any Clio awards for “SOX SUX.” (We ought to know: We served as a preliminary judge of the Clio’s, back in the day.) But the fact that it passed muster, both with our client and our client’s prospects, answers the question above. 
 
Indeed, not only was the line-crossing possible, it was advisable. Think of the competition. Honestly: Do you think anyone else was approaching banking execs with humor like that? In other words, crossing the line cuts through the clutter.
 
That said, you need to be careful. We once worked on a campaign for a cancer center, and there’s simply no humor to be found, or used, there. But banking regulations? Logistics snafus? Finance? Absolutely. There are tons of B2B verticals that suffer from a lack of humor, freedom, and creativity. 
 
There are two components at play here: 
 
The first is shock value. If no one else is using silly jokes, puns, or gallows humor, then your creative will stand out. But beware: Shock value simply for shock value’s sake, can blow up in your face. It can be offensive. Which leads to the second component: 
 
That’s what we might call “intimate expertise.” We didn’t say “Don’t let your bank tank.” That’s just fatuous. Callous. And it takes the low road: it leads with a negative. But “SOX SUX” comes with a wink and a nod: “We understand the burdens of Sarbanes-Oxley. We know how much you dread it. Tacit implication: We have a solution to get you past all this, uh, suckiness.” If you can convey all that in just six letters, you’ve succeeded. 
 
Reward from the risk
 
As a creative, it’s your job to be daring. To push boundaries. As we like to put it to our clients, we’ll always be stretching, and going for the edge. Because we can always pull it back, or dial it down, as needed. If we don’t go there in the first place, we’re not delivering the value that our clients pay us for. (Conversely, it’s impossible to “crank up the creativity” on something dull, so you can’t go in the opposite direction. You can always dial it down; you can never dial it up.) 
 
And of course the creative biz is a world of volume, of rejections, of second, third, and umpteenth passes. A hundred visions and revisions before the taking of toast and tea, as T.S. Eliot would say. 
 
But if you land a good one—or several—that cut through the clutter, that make you laugh in spite of yourself, and that, importantly, help your clients drive in new business, it’s sooo worth the risk. 
 
Have a story to share? Need help with a creative assignment on your plate? Contact us. We’d love to hear from you. 

​What does your next crucial sales presentation have to do with Rich Little? 
 
And who on earth is Rich Little?
 
Stay tuned. This will help you make more money. It’s based on some work we recently did for one of our clients, to help them sell better. And of course, it borrows from Rich Little. 
 
Who?
 
Grating expectations
 
If you’re old enough, you already know who Rich Little is. (We actually had to Google to make sure didn’t need to say—yet—“who Rich Little was.”)
 
He’s a comedian. Specifically, an impersonator: someone who humorously imitates celebrities such as actors and politicians. He was famous for doing impressions of Richard Nixon and Johnny Carson. 
 
Who? And who?
 
Oh geez. Google them if you don’t know. 
 
So. Late in his career—and this would be back in the 1980s, so we’re totally dating ourselves here—we saw Rich Little perform, live, at a casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey. 
 
Mind you, at this time, he was still very well-known. He was the headliner. 
 
So you might think that the live show goes something like this: 
 
There’s a warm-up act: A lesser-known comedian who opens the show and “warms up” the audience, so they’re already laughing and in a good mood by the time Rich Little takes the stage. 
 
And then, just as the warm-up comedian bows off the stage, you hear the house announcer, over the P.A., say, “And now, ladies and gentlemen, let’s welcome our headliner! How about a big Atlantic City welcome for the one, the only, Rich Little!”
 
And the audience cheers and cheers, and Rich Little takes the stage. 
 
Only it didn’t happen that way. 
 
In a word: Huh?
 
The setup
 
The first part of what we just described took place exactly as we described it. That is, all the stuff about the warm-up act. 
 
(Don’t worry—we are totally going to loop this back to your business, and crafting a superior sales presentation, in just a minute. We haven’t lost the thread at all.) 
 
But then, after the warm-up comedian left the stage, here’s what actually happened: 
 
The house lights dimmed. You could hear glitzy show-biz music playing through the house speakers. And then an enormous video screen descended from the ceiling, and there, up on the screen, was… 
 
Rich Little. 
 
Huh??
 
Think about that. Here’s an audience full of people who have paid good money to see Rich Little in person. And the very instant he’s supposed to take the stage—you know he’s standing in the wings, just out of sight—he doesn’t.
 
And, instead, you see a video of him. 
 
Correction: You see lots of videos of him. 
 
And therein lies the crux of this entire conversation. You see, the videos were clips of him… on television. There he is, yukking it up with all the kings of late-night talk shows: Carson. Letterman. Leno. There he is up on a dais, at some roast. With all these other famous people laughing hysterically at his John Wayne (who?) or his Jimmy Stewart (who?) or whatever. With lots of brassy music under it all, tying it all together. 
 
Clip after clip. Of Rich Little, effectively being famous.  
 
After a few minutes of this, a recorded announcer says, “And now, ladies and gentlemen, here he is! Live! In person! Give it up for the one, the only, Rich Little!”
 
And with that, he walks onto the stage. 
 
Setting the scene
 
Guess what? When he took the stage, he took the stage to thunderous applause. The audience was already primed to see him. Why? They knew his work from TV. They thought he was funny. And they knew he was famous, so it was titillating to see him in person. 
 
And his little “sizzle reel” video had just reinforced that. Took it to a whole new level.
 
Ta-dah. 
 
See where this is going? For your business? For your… PowerPoint?
 
The Rich Little Video (that’s what we’d called it, initially, with the client we’d mentioned earlier) is effectively the same thing. It’s a quick highlight reel of “all the stuff we’ve done, the big-name clients we’ve served, a quick overview of our breakthrough methodology,” and so on. 
 
It’s something you can—and, arguably, should—show to prospects, very first thing, when you’ve got them in the room to make a sales presentation. 
 
It worked for Rich Little. It can work for you. 
 
Think about it: 

• It makes you and your company “famous.” If the production value is slick (and it should be), with music, cool graphics and transitions, etc., it elevates your brand. You’re the star of this “movie,” and the prospect will soon get to chat with you… in person.

 

• It makes you and your company big. It shows off the big assignments, just as Rich Little “name-dropped” the kings of late-night TV. You don’t need to force those impressive points into your sales presentation. They’re already there. 

 

• It saves time. Face it, it takes you several precious minutes to verbally describe something like your “breakthrough methodology,” for example. With animated graphics and music, video can compress this into just a few seconds, while making it even clearer. It’s one of the greatest strengths of the medium itself. 

 

• It’s an ice-breaker. Your prospects, on the other side of the table, already have something to think about and talk about and, heck, compliment you on, the instant the lights come up. Indeed, that “sizzle reel” video should end with a line such as, “Let’s show you how we do it!” So it segues right to your live sales pitch; it’s the “the one the only, Rich Little” of your presentation. 

 
Go big
 
Unlike most corporate videos you might make, this one is infinitely slicker. And likely shorter. Keep it under a minute if you can. Thirty seconds would be awesome. Sweat every detail of the scripting, the graphics, the music, everything. “Hollywood” it up. It’s worth it. 
 
Rich Little’s retired. But your business is still going strong. Make it go even stronger, with your own “Rich Little Video.” 
 
Need help with a project like this? We’re your go-to source. Contact us today and let’s discuss your needs.