Hands up who's flown British Airways recently? Right, hands up who hates them?
BA is a high-status brand. They try to be superior to you, and to the other airlines. They take themselves way too seriously, in the belief that being snooty is somehow aspirational. This is reflected in the language they use, and in the behaviour of their staff - on the ground and in the air.
When I asked a BA stewardess for a whisky, she said, "Take it easy." (It was my first drink of the flight.) A few hours later, when she rather imperiously ordered me to close my tray, I said, "take it easy", and gave her a little smile to show I was bantering. She looked at me like she was about to shackle me and have me arrested on landing.
She was not a unique case - in my experience, which on BA is more extensive than I'd like it to be, she was typical of the company, the brand, and its opinion of the world.
On Virgin Atlantic, the Upper Class section has lovely little salt and pepper shakers that are shaped like teardrops - they wobble and they don't fall down. Everyone steals them. On the bottom, there's a sticker saying, "Stolen From Virgin Atlantic Upper Class."
People pay Virgin £4,500 to be insulted by a salt shaker, and they love it. Why? Because Virgin is their friend.
The difference between friends and acquintances is simple: friends are playfully mean to each other, making fun of each other affectionately, and it's taken as an invitation to play - a grooming signal. Acquaintances are rigidly formal, usually defaulting to high-status dominance displays. So there's no sense of play, no spontaneous authenticity in acquaintance relationships. Acquaintances don't know how to banter. At least, they do - but not with each other.
And when you make a status display, the other person's instincts drive them to make a status display of their own, a counter-display to keep up with you or put you down. If you're lucky, they'll make an appeasement display, and then what have you got? A slightly intimidated person who doesn't like you. Well done there.
Banter is a serious social survival skill. By bantering, we not only affirm our friendships - we also play-fight, preparing ourselves for when we're really need the skills in the future, like two martial artists sparring in the dojo. it's an innate instinct in males, and a learned instinct in females. It's basically a mock status display, pretending to lower the other person;s status.
The BA stewardess was insulting me for real; I was bantering with her. Ironically, I could handle being insulted, but she couldn't handle being bantered with. But the real irony is that if you asked her why she went into a service industry, she'd probably say, "Because I like people." (Yeah, so do cannibals.)
Most brands are terrified of looking anything other than incredibly serious and solid, because they believe that they must be high-status all the time; they think that this is where their value and desirability comes from. This makes people ignore them. Some brands, like Virgin, know how to banter and they know that the audience wants to be bantered with.
Pot Noodle got it right, acknowledging that it's really a rather gopping product, and so they reminded us, "It's dirty and you want it." Diet Tango teased us, "You need it because you're weak." And we bought the product. (Maybe you didn't, but I did.)
Virgin, Pot Noodle and Tango were obeying a natural law that's older than money: people trade with friends. Money was only invented when people started trading with strangers.
This begs the question, if money is the root of all evil, then what's the root of all money?
In a word: strangers.
If you can banter with your audience, then you can short-circuit 4,000 years of economic history and have a customer base who feel like you're their friend.
My chances of getting any work out of BA will probably go sub-zero if they read this, and that's fine - I don't really want them as clients. And no, I'm not going to banter with them, because they can't take it.
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