Setting the Tone
Posted by 
on Thursday, December 30, 2010 
at 8:30 AM 
in 
After receiving more than a foot of snow this week, we can truly say that winter is here in New England. While that may have excited some (I’m talking to you, you crazy skiers), winter to me often means that the roads are sloppy.
Well, does that mean that the messages we are delivering to people should be “sloppy” as well?
When I first saw the sign in the picture above (a fellow employee sent it via email to the entire company), I was turned off by it. Slippery roads are not necessarily funny. I wasn’t sure that using this broadcast media to display something less than 100% serious (by including a word New Englanders are famous for, “wicked”) was appropriate.
But then later that night, I noticed that the same picture was appearing all over my Facebook wall. One friend after another got such a kick out of it that they felt the need to post it on their wall and share with their friends. In many of the posts, people included positive comments such as “Here’s one more reason why I love living in New England!”, “Let’s go snow!”. Yes, the great majority of people were fans of the message’s tone.
When it comes to the messages we deliver in our marketing materials, are we always 100% serious? If so, we may hesitate to deviate from that because, after all, every business must use our product or service to survive, right? 
As this example shows, we may reap rewards by letting our personality shine from time to time. A friendly or humorous tone may help our messages stand out from our competitors’, and if it it makes people smile, they may be more willing to share it with their associates.
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