I Was Fired for Being “Inappropriate” and It Destroyed My Life...

Until It Didn't.

Story: How (and why) I changed my perspective on being fired from negative to positive.??

Lesson: It’s inappropriate to pretend to be someone or something you’re not. Now is not the time for brands (especially personal brands) to fake it.

NEXT WEEK'S EDITION: I STOLE SOMETHING FROM THE STORE, AND I'M NOT SORRY

Every person and every company was born with an emotion that rises above other emotions. To identify and build on it, whatever it is, now more than ever is to be celebrated. Brands (both professional and personal) desperately need to thrive by connecting with people in meaningful ways and acknowledging today’s complex and tumultuous times.?We need to be brave and take risks that separate ourselves from the competition. A lot of people fear that being their true self will repel people, but the truth is, when we are our genuine and authentic self, we aren't projecting loads of crap that people will sniff through anyway.

People embrace their personal brand as much (or more) than professional brands. ESPECIALLY because a shitload of us creatives are un-or-underemployed and working our?assets?off to get work.?

Highlight-able:?Stop promoting yourself as “supply” and become the?demand.?

Creativity is not only important to sell a brand, but it’s also to foster conversations that elevate us as a united force. AKA going viral.?

An article I once read by?Donnie Bryant?says:?If a potential client reads your copy and says, “Man, that was a great advertisement!” you’ve failed. You succeed when he asks urgently, “Where can I buy this product?”

I disagree. When a prospective customer or client responds to your ad with emotion – any emotion – they feel. Once a feeling enters into our minds, it leaves an emotional footprint. Digital ads allow us to emotionally engage directly with brands, too. So simply?sharing?a feeling in a comment becomes visible to others, in a snowball effect. Increased awareness and exposure are half the branding battle.

When you successfully create emotion through messaging that?also?creates buyer urgency, that is a total marathon race win. But countless brands run the marathon race just to finish, not to finish first. Think Doritos or Bud Light Super Bowl commercials. These ads simply brand themselves as the cleverest ones on the planet. When I talk about the ad, I say Doritos, not Pringles. When my friends watch the ad because I asked them to, they are being subliminally sold a bag of Doritos. It works because it works.?

Highlight-able:?Ask yourself if you are running the ad marathon to win, or simply to finish?

Puns have been used in advertising and promotions for as long as I can remember. But most recently, this one tops the charts.

DeadHappy is a life insurance brand that targets millennials by laughing death in the face – literally, their logo is a laughing skull.

They use cartoon images, videos and bright colors in their marketing – quite the opposite of the dreadful topic of dying. They add puns many deem inappropriate to end up with ad campaigns that breathe new life into a grim industry. It captures the attention of the age group with death far from their minds.

DeadHappy: Life Insurance for the Living Dead

Please die responsibly

Another timeless classic “clever” inappropriate pun in advertising. This one we all know very well: K-Mart “I Shipped My Pants.”

Love it or hate it, the message is clear and downright hilarious. Even now, over 10 years and a stark store closing era later, we fondly recall the shockingly inappropriate pun of customers who can ship their pants or their bed.

Even the most ‘unsexy’ industries in the world can benefit from some well-thought-out inappropriate copywriting. Test me. I once took a robot manufacturer and turned it into a beloved regional supplier for automotive and industrial companies, simply because the ad garnered brand recall with its farcical hilarity.?

I felt it appropriate (yep, pun intended) to start this weekly digest with a bit of backstory on how we got here.

Story time.

May 3, 2024. It was a beautiful spring Michigan day, and I was super excited to be sealing the deal on my new three-bedroom brick bungalow style house. Having lived in a small apartment for nearly a year, my dog and I had both outgrown the space.?

Elated over the residential victory, I then logged onto my company laptop to join a quick check-in meeting with my boss to go over a few of the weekly initiatives. I was still fairly new to the company, having only been employed full-time since late March.?

It was exactly 2:00 PM. By 2:01, I had been informed by my boss that it was my last day due to “inappropriate behavior” and HR had already taken over the conversation and began reading me my “last rights”. All within about 57 seconds. My entire world was flipped upside down, just like that. My face was undoubtedly pale and disgruntled with confusion, as my brain tried to absorb this horrific information. I immediately wanted to know what I’d done that was so inappropriate.?

Because in a corporate environment such as this one, I might drop the occasional innocuous “that’s what she said” or make a joke here and there about a fart. But I know how to fucking conduct myself, and I am not unprofessional, rude, mean, discriminatory, or otherwise, ever, in this life. It is not in my DNA to be anything other than fun, outgoing, inclusive, and bright around my colleagues.?

I didn’t sleep well for the next three months. No one would tell me what I did wrong, so I was left wondering, which ate at me every minute of every day. If I did something so atrocious, why not tell me, so I can correct it in the future? Something was not right. And so, I got to thinking about how I could change this perceived negative into a positive.?

I took to WordHippo.com (my go-to as a writer) and looked up synonyms for inappropriate. What I found was an abundance of words that instantly gave me the clarity I was looking for. Terms like brave, courageous, risky, ill-fitted, awkward, obnoxious, earthy, wretched, improper, unrefined, atrocious, playful, ridiculous, clever, funny, tongue-in-cheek… the list went on and on and as I read each one, I smiled a bit brighter.?

Then I shook my head and sat back in my chair. Dammit, I?am?inappropriate.?

Shoulder shrug. If I weren’t at least a little bit of all these things, then I would not be very good at my job. I’m a creative content writer. I write copy that has intention and makes people stop dead in their tracks to take action. I create emotional experiences through the art of well-crafted words and visuals.?

If you are reading this sentence I wrote – it’s all because I decided to no longer allow that word to define me unfavorably. I scrounged up all the moxie I had in me and took a chance that other people, who are just like me, might feel unseen and unheard.?

Having a juvenile sense of humor or being unfiltered is not a bad thing. It’s a good thing. It means we are real, raw and earnest.?

If this is you, subscribe to my newsletter (which is really just a collection of inappropriate thoughts, stories, experiences and lessons I manage to draw from).?

Stay inappropriate, friends.