Marcom A to Z — F for Fun

I’m writing this blog post while on vacation in Door County, Wis. Fun exists five seconds or feet from any point in time or geography up here. In fact, regardless of the location, fun abounds when you’re on vacation. So why am I writing when I could be playing croquet? For me, called work or hobby, writing is fun.

Among other brands of fun distilled at our agency, this blog plays to my professional sense of fun. Creating that kind of office environment, one that embraces or facilitates fun for its associates and defines fun according to its culture, is more important today than a few years ago. With budgets slashed, travel limited, marketing programs put on hold, raises reduced and/or associates released, many offices have put fun on hold. Actually, fun is a controllable resource that may play an important role in associate and business retention when the economy finally swings in the right direction.

What’s fun about your company, office or professional culture? Have you had fun at work in the last week? Have your associates? Would your most lucrative client or customer say that they have fun working with you?

If funding fun for employees or clients (parties, ping-pong tables, office toys, etc.) isn’t an option these days, look to other sources but don’t overlook it entirely. Employees want to work for a fun company, a successful one as well. These aren’t mutually exclusive and, in fact, fun may drive success to a certain degree. Businesses seek out partners that produce a good product or service, yes, but also because they’re fun to work with and enjoy their craft.

This means, however you define fun, it should factor into the definition of your next internally- or externally-facing marcom campaign. Talk about the fun, show the fun and feature examples of corporate fun in your next all-associate broadcast or on your intranet. Make it the subject of your next internal marketing program or a bullet point in the next creative brief that’s developed.

Fun doesn’t mean silly. It’s not limited to start-ups and creative companies. You don’t need a Magic 8 Ball. It could be as simple as creating a blog that allows your associates who love to write the opportunity to do so.

For the sake of your associates, business partners and future marketing campaigns, take a two-minute vacation from knuckle-clenching, hard-driving business and nourish the fun factor. As a result, your bottom line just might thank you.

This weekly series discusses marcom concepts by the letter — from A to Z. The next post: G for Global.