The third Talking Point: start with the truth, not the joke

Three episodes in and I still can't count them. I opened this one by welcoming everyone to our fourth Talking Point, then our third, then admitted I'd already lost track. Which, to be fair, was a decent warm-up for an hour about humour. I guess I've been busy. More on that later.

This was the one I'd been itching to do. I love comedy. I'm a very happy sitter and watcher of it. And I've always thought humour is a bit of a dark corner of employer branding that nobody quite dares go into, because nobody's sure what the right thing to do is. So when Alli raised it as she joined the EBClub platform, I thought, right, we're doing that one.

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A massive thank you to Alli and Karen

Alli Spangler is Talent Acquisition Partner at Manscaped, still in the trenches recruiting every day, and also the person carrying Manscaped's famously cheeky voice into its employer brand. Karen Smith is regional head of marketing at ACCA, the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, and has spent her career in what she calls the traditionally serious sectors. Finance, banking, local government, criminal justice. Then she made accountancy funny.

One brand built on humour, one nobody expected to crack a joke. The perfect pairing, and the two of them were brilliant. Generous, funny (obviously), and full of things you can actually use on Monday morning.

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Start with the truth, not the joke

If you take one thing from the hour, take Karen's line. Don't start by deciding to be funny. Start with what's true about your audience and the problem you're solving, and let the humour earn its place.

For ACCA, the truth was that accountants are hugely important but almost invisible, and stereotyped as dull. So rather than another corporate message telling everyone accountants matter, A World Without Accountants imagined what happens when you take them away. It was made with the brilliant team at Blackbridge and comedian Josh Baulf, and it's observational rather than slapstick: the yoga guru trying so hard to be green he misses the point, the office chancer making terrible investments, the scammer. Comedy works when people recognise themselves in it. I was at Blackbridge when it was coming out, so I got to watch it land, and it was fascinating. It's the same thing we keep coming back to on EBN about what authenticity actually looks like.

And the bit I loved: she never asked her board to approve comedy in the abstract. She went in with member insight, data on brands that had done it well, and a clear line on what they would never joke about. Start small, test regionally, prove it, and the success earns you permission to push further next time.

The day-one test

Alli's rule is brilliantly simple. Before anything goes out, ask: would a new hire be shocked by this on their first day? If it isn't how it feels inside, it doesn't go out. So the cheeky voice turns up in job descriptions, careers pages, FAQs and even on Glassdoor, because it's genuinely how Manscaped is. It's the cure for the catfishing problem we've written about.

She uses humour as a filter, too. Manscaped talks about 'balls', point blank (we in the UK did enjoy that one), and if that makes you squirm, it's probably not the place for you. Meanwhile she's showing what the consumer brand doesn't: a workforce that's fifty-fifty men to women, with a lot of the best ideas coming from women.

Why LinkedIn, not TikTok

We all assume humour means TikTok. Both of them said LinkedIn. That's where our audience actually spends its time, and where a bit of genuine surprise stands out most. It reminded me of something Jeremy Connell-Waite at IBM shared years ago: of all the human emotions, surprise is the one that changes minds, flips perception. Humour is one of the best ways to create it.

Karen's warning: don't borrow someone else's sense of humour. Ryanair's works because it's Ryanair's. Imagine ACCA behaving like Ryanair. Know yourself, and when you take content across channels, change the format, not the personality.

Alli's measurement story made me smile. Manscaped ran a LinkedIn tagging campaign with employees as ambassadors, and candidates started emailing her to say it made them even more excited about their interview. That's employee generated content doing exactly what it should.

Two lines are going straight on a Post-it. "If you have to put a joke on a PowerPoint and explain why it's funny, it's not a good sign." And: don't only ask what could go wrong if you're brave, ask what happens if nobody notices the safe version. The real risk is being ignored, which is very much the argument in are employer brands confusing visibility with value. Oh, and nobody needs a funny annual report.

Thank you, everyone in the room

Thanks to Holly for being first to confirm I wasn't talking into the void, always appreciated, and to everyone who came along live or is catching up now. Nobody asked a question this time, which Karen reckons means we were so clear you'll all go away and come back with one. Fair enough. Alli and Karen are both happy to hear from you on LinkedIn.

As promised, I'll share the ACCA and Manscaped content in the EBClub community thread for this episode, along with a few others that made me laugh, including excellent examples from Reckitt and Anduril.

EB Club is flying

I keep having to pinch myself. Over 300 in-house practitioners in the Community Hub within a couple of months of opening, more joining every week, three Talking Points in the bag, and the ever expanding events lined up across Europe, USA and beyond for the next six months. If you work in-house in employer branding, talent attraction, TA or HR and you're not in yet, you're missing the best conversations in the industry, in-person and online.

It's free for in-house practitioners, and applications are reviewed within 48 hours, but usually within 4 hours.

Join EB Club here.

Still on the fence? Read why the employer brand job need never be lonely again.

Next time: Bryan Adams (no, not that one)

In two weeks I'm joined by Bryan Adams. Not the Canadian singer. Bryan Adams, but CEO of Happydance, the careers site people. And I'm delighted to say that from the next episode, The Talking Point is sponsored by Happydance. Thank you, Bryan and the team.

Bryan co-wrote Getting Goosebumps with Dave Hazlehurst, and a lot of it is about what storytelling can learn from comedy, so it's the perfect follow-on. But also he has a new book Sell The Truth. We'll be talking about telling one consistent story from first attraction all the way to the careers site. Catch up on episode one on GEO and episode two on candidate trust before then.

Yes that's right. There were only two episodes before this one, Steve.

Thank you again, Alli and Karen. What a session. See you in two weeks.

Steve

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