Ramming One’s Head Into Sculptures at Full Speed, Inc.
MEMO
March 6, 2008Â
To: Marketing TeamÂ
RE: Marketing rethink
Team,
Having been hired on as your new VP here in the Marketing department, I first want to say thank you for the welcome lunch today at Elephant Bar with all of you. I could eat that chocolate lava cake every meal of the day. Just kidding.
So, now down to business. As you know, the most recent quarter at Ramming unfortunately continued an unsettling trend we’ve had for now 9 straight quarters with us losing revenue over the quarter previous.
The question we need frankly to ask ourselves is why aren’t people ramming their head into sculptures (at FS)? That’s something we have to figure out. I know that, when I told my kids about the company I’d be working for, they said ramming one’s head into a sculpture at any speed “sounds stupid/gross/gay, etc.”
So, whatever the reason, there’s a perception out there we’re contending with.
We in marketing are charged with changing that perception. So I’d love to chat with each of you forany ideas you may have.
Some thoughts:
We haven’t yet delved into TV advertising because, from what I understand, historically the company has worried about the effect someone ramming their head into a sculpture would have visually to a TV audience. But, as is common in advertising today, we don’t have to literally show it or even really speak of it. Just show some 20-somethings hanging out in a sculpture garden, languidly looking at the stars and sitting back against each other around a camp fire, Nick Drake music playing and, after some of that, our logo softly displaying on the screen.
But on the other hand, we may want to actually be very specific in other mediums. Some new FAQs on our website dispelling the idea that we’re somehow in the business of something called “ramming one’s head into sculptures at full speed” but not literally that. I’m not sure why this confusion exists (why would someone name something else “ramming one’s head into scultpures at full speed”?), but it does.
Also, how is the lack of funding in the arts affecting our business (or “bidness” as David Letterman says for comedic affect)? With so few sculptures being commissioned in our neighborhoods anymore, potential clients are finding it harder to find the proper surface upon which the ramming should terminate. They just find themselves in a perpetual state of ram.
So, we may want to think about creating our own sculpting department. The sculptors wouldn’t have to be particularly good I don’t think. Just be able to transform a hard substance into something that would fit even the minimal standard of art (e.g., This means our sculpts wouldn’t have to convincingly and in new ways evoke war or that kind of thing to everyone who sees it. Instead, it could barely evoke something like wanting to eat and not everyone would have to “get it” either and it could technically be cliche.)
Another option here would be for us to lobby for NEA funding, etc. for sculpture parks in our communities. APparently, someone is currently doing that for us but he’s what is called insane.
So, I’ll set appointments with each of you in Outlook and we’ll brainstorm!
If you’re in a meeting and you hear a police siren outside:
OLD: (turn to someone, doesn’t matter who) “Hey! Looks like they’re comin’ for ya! Ha! Ha!” NEW: “Those are sirens. Let’s wait until they pass and, Ed, if you can repeat what you said about the template.”
Here are more office humor cliches–those things people say in response to typical office situations even though they know they’re not worth saying. Then, per usual, our staff updated each cliche to better fit our modren times.
Here:
When a coworker introduces you to their non-work friend and the friend says to you, “Oh, yeah. I’ve heard about you”:
Old: “All good things, I hope! Ha! Ha!”
New: “There’s birds about me? Huh? Oh, you’ve heard about me. Probably not good things. Ha! Ha!”
When you’re in a meeting with a client who flew in from California to your cold Midwest state:
Old: “Thanks for flying all the way from California! Did you bring any of that beautiful weather with ya? Ha! Ha!”
New: “This harsh weather depresses me something special! It’s just gray and lifeless for months! Ha! Ha!”
When you get in the elevator at the end of the work day and it luckily doesn’t stop on any other floors between your company’s floor and the parking garage.
Old: “Hey, looks like we got the express! Ha! Ha!”
New: “Hmm? Oh, this is my floor already? Sorry, I was daydreaming about what could have been! Ha! Ha!”
When you come in in the morning on a Tuesday or Wednesday:
Old: “Is it Friday yet? Ha! Ha!”
New: “I wish I could just get on a horse and ride and ride and ride forever, the headwind blowing the tears off my face! Ha! Ha!”
This fall, we offer the Westwood Combination Building/Staple Remover named after famed architect Mies van der Rohe. Its stainless steel “things” are designed to get under even the most stubborn staple at which point you will need to contribute your muscles’ deep powers to extract that exact same staple from your nether parts or your documents if you wish to more easily lay it, page by page, upon the park carousel.
Okay, here are some office humor cliches–those things people say in response to typical office situations even though they know they’re not worth saying. And, assuming you don’t mind, we propose new cliches to take their place.
When Ted walks into the breakroom where you’re having a conversation with someone else:
OLD: “This is one of the ones with no calories, right? Ha! Ha!”
NEW: “I’ll eat this, I guess, but I know I’ll get this total sugar crash and get so depressed. Especially on a day like this, with all this fucking rain, pardon my French. I don’t even really like doughnuts; they’re too sweet. But…I don’t know…”
When you walk into the breakroom and a bunch of your coworkers are laughing at something they were talking about:
OLD: “You guys are having too much fun! Ha! Ha!” or “No laughing allowed! Ha! Ha!”
NEW: Ask what’s so funny and, after one of the nicer of the group takes the effort to repeat the whole dialogue, kind of shrug and say, “Guess you had to be there.”
When you have to do something like get a ream of paper, tear it open, and load it in the copier:
OLD: “Well, that’s my workout for the day! Ha! Ha!”
NEW: “It seems like everytime I use this fucking thing, pardon my French, I have to load some fucking paper in it, pardon my French.”
When out at lunch, getting burgers with coworkers, and it’s taking a slightly long time for the food to come out:
OLD: “What are they doing? Killing the cow? Ha! Ha!”
NEW: “I have so much work to do today. Ugh! Can’t stand that place.”
Whenever someone does anything that you may not have any other quick cliche response to:
OLD: “That was like on, uh, that one episode of ‘Seinfeld’! Ha! Ha!” For example, if a lizard falls from the ceiling tiles onto a monkey that someone brought into the office for some reason, refer to when Kramer did that and George gripes about when people talk to him in the bathroom, etc., because, believe us, there is an episode you can somehow match to anything that happens in life.
What’s up, ‘ho? Here’s some more office humor cliches we think need to be refreshed!!!
When someone is introducing their new boyfriend around the office and he’s being told the name of about 30 of your coworkers:
OLD: “You better remember all these names! There’ll be a quiz later! Ha! Ha!”
NEW: “Hey.”
When someone is introducing their new boyfriend around the office and they introduce you as “my friend�:
OLD: “I pay her to say that! Ha! Ha!”
NEW: “Yeah. Hey.”
When someone says that they’ll be presenting a PowerPoint and, therefore, need that “projector thingy� set up in the conference room:
OLD: “‘Projector thingy.’ Is that the technical term? Ha! Ha!”
NEW: “Okay.”
Whenever someone says anything that you don’t have another joke ready for:
OLD: “Hey! That’d make a great name for a band!” For example, if someone says, “The vending machine sandwiches look old,” you’d say, “That’d make a great name for a band! ‘The Vending Machines Sandwiches’! Ha! Ha!”
SECRETARY
How was your weekend, Mr. Prime Minister?
WINSTON CHURCHILL
Too short.
THE STORIED CHURCHILL witty comeback above is just one example of the countless “zingers” that helped lift British spirits during the German bombings and two other major events that would round out a nice list of three.
Office humor cliches have survived because they bolster the office environment’s blatant insincerity and tedium. However, we need new office humor cliches that even better capture the essence of the singularly soul-crushing modern office. Try these!
Upon running into someone for a second or third time that day:
OLD: “Hey! We gotta stop meeting like this!” NEW: “When I saw you last, I asked you to put together that spreadsheet. I haven’t gotten it yet, and that’s unacceptable. Get it done.”
Seeing someone microwaving their lunch:
OLD: “Hey! What are you making me?”
NEW: “How much more time on this? I have stuff to microwave too.”
Walking past a temp filling in for Kathy for the day:
OLD: “Kathy, you look different today!”
NEW: “Oh, good! Another temp we have to spend most of the day training and who, for what’s left of the day, will do everything a little wrong and leave us worse off than if we had just done nothing until Kathy got back!”
Greeting the counterperson in the corporate cafeteria:
OLD: “Hey! You must have been up all night making this food, huh?”
NEW: “Some of that I guess.” (Point at the food you want.)
