Happy Friday!

I’m wearing whiskers by Chanel and a tail by Prada 😂

Let’s face it: the world can be a pretty strange place sometimes. A Spanish athlete just spent 500 days alone in a cave. Two men in Ohio recently pled guilty to stuffing fish with lead weights to win a fishing tournament. The endless list of oddities grows every day. For those of you still struggling with how to incorporate humor into your brand’s voice, here’s a tip: embrace the strange and unusual. Ultra-posh brand Vogue is winning with its latest take on the bizarre – a mystery celeb showing up at the famous Met Gala this week in a furry cat suit. Because, hey, why not?

So, Britney Spears, two turtles and a lightsaber get into an Uber…🦉

As media relations pros, we at Peppercomm love us some index. There’s nothing like an index to capture the public’s imagination. After all, the seminal Dow Jones Industrial Average first appeared in a two-page financial newsletter that eventually became…you guessed it…the Wall Street Journal. So we have to lol at Uber’s latest release of its annual Lost & Found Index, highlighting the most unusual items left in its vehicles. Now we’re waiting for the company to tell us that the bluefin tuna, fake tooth and single Gucci loafer were found in the same Uber. That would be one helluva story.

Take me out to the juego de pelota ✨

Humor can be an effective business tool for successfully driving conversations around topics that can otherwise be triggering. So our eyes light up whenever we see levity in the flow of critically important DE&I work (Peppercomm’s CEO even wrote about this recently in Forbes). The latest example is minor league baseball expanding its Copa de la Diversión promotion. The nationwide program (which translates to “Fun Cup”) now includes 95 teams taking on alter egos to raise awareness of the Latino/a experience in the U.S. and the amazing contributions people of Latino/a heritage make every day. Who doesn’t think the Lecheros de Milwaukee (Milwaukee Milkmen) and Mariachis de Nuevo México (no translation needed) are totally adorbs?