Should Marketers Ever Have Fun?

When I was a freshman in college, I applied for my first internship. I’m sure I violated most of my own rules regarding a job search and interviewing.

Walt Disney World had come to Boston, recruiting students for summer internships. I applied for a marketing internship which, at the time, meant either serving as a runner to get stuff from one place to another in the Magic Kingdom, dressing up as a costumed character or operating an attraction.

I cobbled together enough professional clothing from relatives to look decent, and walked into a room that probably felt like what actors face when they arrive at a casting session. There were kids my age everywhere. Small meeting rooms were attended by a slew of Disney recruiters who were interviewing applicants.

My turn came, and I sat down and heard about the hard work that would be required, the long hours, the housing situation, the benefits of having Disney on my resume and more. The conversation was moving along wonderfully, and I could almost feel the hot Florida summer sun on my skin, sense the palm trees, see Mickey. And then came the final interview question.

“You seem interested and a good fit, Mark,” said my interviewer. “Can you tell me in one word what your expectation is of this internship?”

“Fun,” I said. And that was clearly the wrong answer. My Floridian friend’s face went dark, and she repeated the word to me, first as a question, then as a statement, then simply as disappointment. I was told working for the Walt Disney Corporation was not about having “fun.” Rather it was about responsibility, professionalism, learning, hard work. I was thanked for my time, and received a rejection letter a few days later. (Quick disclaimer: While I never did get the job, I have traveled to Disney parks many times with my kids, and we’ve had a lot of fun. So there.)

Was I wrong? A job at Disney should be fun, right? I’ve been fortunate to work with Disney as a client over the years, and the people I interact with are fun, and they have fun at their jobs. Maybe I was ahead of my time.

Now 30 years into my career, with 20 of those in various public relations and marketing roles, I should make it a point to ask that question when I am interviewing candidates. If someone answered “fun,” I’d be thrilled.

Why can’t marketing be fun? It should be. The work should be fun, the interaction with your client and colleagues should be fun, and celebrating successes should be fun.

Granted, great marketing is hard work, from research to concepting to testing and deployment. Sometimes it works as well as or better than we expected, and other times it crashes and burns. It’s serious work too, as both the brands we represent rely on successful programs to spread the word or sell product or drive leads, and the people we work with rely on great results to succeed in their jobs (or to simply keep their jobs).

Marketing and PR, while creative in the sense that we can use words and imagery to convey so much, is also technical, technology-dependent and specific. But it can still be fun.

When I think back on the more successful clients and projects that my teams have worked on, they had one common element – they were enjoyable. Y2K wasn’t fun. But, in 1999, when working with a Y2K expert, it was fun because he was willing to talk to anyone and find a need for any business in any industry to pay attention to the topic.

When we launched Hostelworld into the U.S., our PR pitches were about anything from parties to prostitutes, and our clients were a bunch of young marketers in Dublin. Lots of laughs, lots of success.

Bank aren’t fun, right? When a community bank hired a Red Sox player to support its kids’ banking accounts, we had fun holding a press conference that was led by kids, with the traditional broadcast media relegated to the sidelines.

Even challenging experiences can have a fun outcome. We worked with a technology company whose marketing lead was a very serious person – not a lot of smiles or recognition for our work. But when a team digs in and regularly produces surprising and exceptional work, there is always opportunity to break through. And we did.

Maybe if there was more fun in marketing, CMOs would keep their jobs longer, teams would stay together longer and prospects would embrace messaging more readily. I’m having fun; you should too. If not, try this.

Five Ways to Find Fun in Your Marketing

1. Enjoy your clients. Some may remind you of your closest friend and others may remind you of your grumpy grandfather. Especially when the work gets challenging, working with clients that you like – on one level or another – makes it all come together more easily. When you need to spend two days on a media tour with a client in Manhattan or travel with a B2B client to a construction trade show to discuss the virtues of concrete, you better enjoy the relationship. I like to keep it light with clients when holding a status call or presenting creative while never glossing over areas of concern or difficult conversations. They may not like (or get) my sense of humor, but usually there’s an appreciation that I at least have one. (Clients, feel free to challenge the validity of my belief that I do indeed have a sense of humor!)
2. Enjoy your team. Like your family, you can’t always choose your team. But you should have a clear understanding about whether you enjoy your team. That does not mean beers at the local pub every night (but it could) or getting on a colleague’s holiday card list. Rather, it means mutual respect, and the comfortable relationship that emerges from that respect. It means sharing common goals for your clients even if your creative visions for reaching those goals differ wildly. It means enjoying, anticipating and celebrating successes. The best teams I have welcome collaboration and discussion, and find constructive criticism easier to deal with because the group is fun to be around. When a bad actor messes up that dynamic, recognize it’s time to move on.
3. Enjoy your work. Writing another white paper for a technology company or eBook for a mutual fund company may seem a chore. Make it fun again. Challenge yourself to find a new direction, create something that no one else has yet, or find a way to surprise and delight your client. If you don’t find the work fun, it will show in the work product. Some of this is built on internal motivation, but the rest is remembering that you are a marketer because that’s what you enjoy doing.
4. Create stuff the client will never see. Imagine your clients in a whole new light. Use different colors, play with social approaches, storyboard a video – anything that fires your creative thinking. And when a client comes to you for the next big idea, you might already have it.
5. Embrace the fun. Sure, we bitch about clients from time to time. I’m sure they bitch about us too. That’s OK. Define what fun means in the context of each client. Maybe it’s as simple as getting them out of their office and into yours for a brainstorm. Maybe it’s taking them to an event that they would not attend on their own. We took a client to a MassChallenge event despite their objections that it was the “wrong crowd.” Instead they found investors and partners (and potential partners) and established relationships well beyond that single evening out. But you never know what mutual “fun ground” you’ll find without exploration. Share a meme. Invest in the work. Create awesome stuff.

Marketing may not be all fun and games, but it certainly can – and should – be fun. If it’s not, you’re doing it wrong or you’re in the wrong profession. And that’s no fun.