How Humor Can Support PR Efforts

After the ups and downs of 2024, many people are in the mood to lighten up. Promoting hope, unity, and optimism could encourage those we guide as PR professionals.

Our most important role this year may be counseling our clients. Before 2020, many pros worked to prevent issues by guiding clients and monitoring their environments. But how many of us have responded to more crises, more often than ever, since the start of the decade? 

Communicators at all levels should be prepared to tackle crisis management challenges, but doing so takes the proper training and temperament. Whether you love this specialty or not, crisis comms can be taxing.

One of the Page Principles of PR, inspired by how the historical “father of corporate public relations,” Arthur W. Page, practiced public relations, is to “remain calm, patient and good-humored.”

Because the last few years have tested our ability to remain calm and patient, perhaps we forgot about the importance of humor. 

My ability to ease into a tough conversation or warm up a relationship with some relevant humor has benefited my career. I’ve used my wit to lighten a mood, engage a client, or make a point memorable with a crowd. 

Award-winning children’s book creator Eliza Kinkz, a “Tejana artist who still sees the world through the bright colors of her crayons,” recently shared how important humor is in helping people take in an important message. 

Kinkz is my husband’s cousin, and I’ve watched her illustrator star rise by keeping up with her on Instagram. There, I noticed her audience’s enthusiastic reactions to a video she shared. In the video, Eliza gave an exuberant acceptance speech at the 2024 American Library Association Awards, where she advocated for recognizing the importance of humor in children’s literature. Her message resonated with me.

Communicators can use this genre strategically. I recently talked with Kinkz, who is getting ready to share some laughs (and her love of tortillas) in her author-illustrator debut “¡Mistaco!”

You were surprised when you received an award for your work illustrating humorous children’s books. Why did that surprise you?

I was VERY surprised as usually drama is always chosen at award time. I feel like there is some strange assumption that awards should only go to serious things. Which is bonkers as humor can handle serious topics just as well and even better at times. Humor lightens the load of taking on hard subjects and definitely makes them more palatable. 

Why do you advocate for more humor in written works?

`Honestly, it is because it is what I do best! Humor is the sandbox I am most comfy in, and I want to pull people into it with me. As humor brings about laughter, which opens people’s hearts, and creates community among us.    

How do we know if something is funny but not lame or inappropriate?

This one is hard as anyone can find anything inappropriate these days. When my kid tells me a poop joke, it makes me laugh. But, some other person might be grossed out. For me, any joke making fun of a real person strikes me as unkind, and I always try to stay far away from that humor.  

What should PR pros know about working with illustrators like yourself?

Please give us respect. Illustrators work so hard, and they put their hearts into their artwork. Art may be work for hire at times, but that does not mean a piece of an artist’s heart does not go with it. Please respect, and come ready with what you want. And if you want a ton of revisions, then you should be prepared to pay the artist more.