Written by
Abbie Mason
ROI Is Out. ROJ Is In: Return on Joy
For years, comms has been asked to prove its worth through three little letters: ROI.
Introduction
Maybe we’ve been measuring the wrong return.
Return on investment.
Return on spend.
Return on campaign.
Return on “can you make this go viral by Thursday?”
Maybe we need to recalibrate.
Because in a world where audiences are tired, teams are stretched, attention is scarce and trust is fragile, the brands that cut through are not always the loudest, slickest or most optimised. They are the ones that make people feel something.
Welcome to ROJ: Return on Joy.
Not joy as in jazz hands, forced fun or a cupcake in the breakout area. Real joy. The kind that creates connection, energy, memorability and momentum. The kind that makes employees want to show up, customers want to come back, and communities want to talk about you when you are not in the room.
The problem with ROI-only thinking
ROI matters. Of course it does. Businesses need commercial outcomes. Campaigns need accountability. Budgets need defending.
But when ROI becomes the only language in the room, comms can become smaller than it should be. Every idea gets squeezed through a spreadsheet before it has a chance to breathe. Every message becomes functional. Every campaign starts to sound like everyone else’s.
That is risky, because people are not spreadsheets.
In the UK, Gallup’s workplace data shows that only 10% of employees are engaged at work, below the global average of 20%. The same data reports that 18% of UK employees experienced loneliness and 22% experienced sadness a lot of the previous day. That is not just an HR issue. It is a comms issue, a culture issue and a business issue. (gallup.com)
If people are disengaged, overwhelmed or emotionally switched off, another carefully optimised message is not enough. They need a reason to care.
Joy is not fluffy. It is functional.
Joy helps people remember. It helps them participate. It creates the emotional glue between a message and an action.
There is evidence behind this. Research from Oxford University’s Saïd Business School, in collaboration with BT, found that happy workers were 13% more productive. The study showed that happier employees did not work longer hours; they were more productive in the time they already worked. (ox.ac.uk)
That is the heart of ROJ.
Joy is not the opposite of performance. Joy can be a route to performance.
It shows up when:
An internal campaign makes people feel seen rather than managed.
A customer email sounds human instead of corporate.
A brand creates a moment people genuinely want to share, not because they were told to, but because it made their day better.
The UK is tired. Brands need to read the room.
The business case for joy becomes clearer when you look at the current UK context.
Deloitte has estimated that poor mental health costs UK employers £51 billion a year, with presenteeism — people working while unwell and underperforming — costing around £24 billion annually. (deloitte.com)
The Office for National Statistics reported that UK workers lost an average of 4.4 working days to sickness absence in 2024, with sickness absence accounting for 2.0% of working hours lost. (personneltoday.com)
And on the customer side, expectations are just as fragile. The UK Consumer Voice Report 2024 found that 67% of UK consumers are less loyal to brands than they were two years ago. (servicenow.com) Government research also found that 7 in 10 UK consumers had a negative experience with an item or service, showing how common customer friction has become. (gov.uk)
This is the reality comms is operating in:
Tired employees.
Cautious customers.
Audiences with little patience for blandness.
Joy is not a nice-to-have in that environment. It is a competitive advantage.
What ROJ looks like in comms
ROJ does not mean every brand has to be funny. It does not mean turning serious messages into memes. It means creating communication that gives more than it takes.
That could look like:
A staff update that feels clear, kind and energising rather than cold and procedural.
A customer campaign that adds delight, surprise or usefulness rather than just another discount code.
A social post that sounds like a person wrote it.
A launch moment that gives people something to join in with.
A brand voice that makes the everyday feel less grey.
The point is not to chase laughs. The point is to create a positive emotional return.
People should leave the interaction feeling better, clearer, warmer, more confident or more connected than they did before.
That is ROJ.
How to measure Return on Joy
Here is the important bit: ROJ can still be measured.
It just asks us to widen the dashboard.
Instead of only asking, “Did this convert?”, we can also ask:
Did people engage with it voluntarily?
Did it improve sentiment?
Did employees understand and remember the message?
Did customers talk about it positively?
Did it reduce friction?
Did it increase participation?
Did it create repeat interaction?
Did it make the brand easier to like?
ROJ can sit alongside ROI, not replace it. The smartest comms teams will measure both: the commercial return and the emotional return.
Because the emotional return often comes first.
People feel before they click.
They trust before they buy.
They belong before they advocate.
They smile before they share.
Why this matters for leaders
Leaders often underestimate the emotional temperature of their organisation. They focus on the message they want to send, rather than the mood it will land in.
But comms does not happen in a vacuum. It lands in inboxes full of unread emails, Teams channels full of noise, homes full of pressure and minds already carrying too much.
That is why joyful communication is not childish. It is considerate.
It says:
We know your attention is valuable, so we will not waste it.
We know your day is busy, so we will make this clear.
We know you are human, so we will sound human too.
In a UK workplace where engagement is low and wellbeing is under pressure, that matters. (gallup.com)
The ROJ test
Before your next campaign, announcement or content plan goes live, ask:
Where is the joy?
Not the gimmick.
Not the forced pun.
Not the stock photo of people laughing near a laptop.
The actual joy.
Where is the moment of ease?
Where is the spark?
Where is the human line?
Where is the reason someone would remember this?
Where is the thing that makes the audience feel more connected than before?
If you cannot find it, the work may still function. But it may not travel.
Conclusion
Final thought
ROI tells you what came back. ROJ tells you why people cared enough to respond in the first place. And in a market where loyalty is harder to earn, employees are harder to engage, and attention is harder to keep, joy might be one of the most commercially sensible things a brand can create. So yes: - Measure the clicks. - Track the leads. - Report the revenue. But do not forget the feeling. Because the brands that win hearts often win the numbers too. Forget ROI. This is ROJ.