OFFICE LIFE AND CARTOONS

Office cartoons? What’s that?

I think you’ll agree with me that for centuries, people have been using cartoons and humorous illustrations not only to entertain, but also bring attention to serious topics in a light-hearted way. It’s no surprise that many businesses have acknowledged their ability to communicate ideas, connect people and drive marketing and sales to higher levels. Cartoons and cartoon characters have been used successfully in marketing campaigns, print and TV ads, company and client newsletters, presentations, websites, etc.

But what about today?

Before exploring how cartoons can benefit your business let’s try to categorize cartoons into a few categories.

Business cartoons

Business (or office) cartoons are usually used to break monotony, motivate, reduce tension, address specific employee behavior or handle sensitive topics. Also could be great conversation starters.

Computer and Technology Cartoons

Technology changes so quickly nowadays, that often times people have less and less time to adapt. The Internet has turned into this mega boiler room, with new gadgets being introduced to us every day. AI and VR, Siri and Alexa… Amazon and Uber are just some names that come to mind. Comics and office cartoons centered around computers and technology have an opportunity to address this overload of technology and offer a humorous and relatable way to handle technology overwhelm.

Presentation cartoons

This type of comic work includes projects, business proposals, or any other formal presentations companies demand. Presentation cartoons make board meetings and discussions less boring and maybe a bit more exciting. Besides, they are fun and easy to understand compared to other graphics usually used in presentation.

Newsletter cartoons

It’s no surprise that 95% of company newsletters end up in a delete folder and more than half the emails remain unopened. Why? Because reading a lengthy company report is work and sounds like a chore. On the other hand, people love humor and share funny videos and hilarious memes. Using newsletter cartoons will add life to the monotonous text and will turn your employees into regular readers.

These are just a few cartoon categories.

There are many, many others like family, business, cat, lawyers, fitness, safety, medical, pet, education, and political cartoons out there for you.

Here are some benefits of using cartoons in your business:

• They inject humor and can make a mundane topic look much more exciting. Company meetings will change from being long and boring to productive and memorable.
• If you are dealing with a controversial topic they can potentially diffuse tension.
• They are self-explanatory, easy to understand and more to the point (unlike videos, which take time)
• They convey relevant information while providing entertainment.

In short, humor works!

Knowing how to cater your material to your audience and employees is the key to successful business and marketing plans. Learning from entertainment trends and understanding that injecting humour and using imagery to convey an emotion or message is the way to turn a stagnant report or presentation into an engaging one.