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Some jokes cost nothing. One cost around £500 million.
On 23 April 1991 Gerald Ratner stood up at the Royal Albert Hall to speak to the Institute of Directors. He ran the Ratners jewellery chain, the shops with the bright cut-price posters that had shaken up a very staid trade. By most accounts the shops were tacky. They were also hugely popular.
Then he got to the decanters. Cut-glass, six glasses, a silver-plated tray, all for £4.95. People ask how he can sell it so cheaply, he said. “Because it’s total crap.”
He kept going. Some of the earrings were cheaper than a prawn sandwich from Marks and Spencer, “but I have to say the sandwich will probably last longer than the earrings”.
The room was full of his peers. The papers carried it to everyone else.
Customers stayed away. The value of the group fell by around £500 million and it came close to collapse. Ratner was dismissed in November 1992, and in September 1993 the company changed its name to Signet. The phrase outlived the brand. “Doing a Ratner” still means talking your own business down in public.
Here is the bit that is easy to miss.
He did not reveal a secret. Nobody paying £4.95 for a decanter set thought it was Waterford crystal. Cheap was the offer. Cheap was why people walked in.
What he changed was how it felt to have bought something. A Ratners gift used to be a nice thing on a budget. After that speech it was a punchline, and the person handing it over was in on the joke whether they liked it or not. That is a very different product, sitting in exactly the same box.
Every business has a version of this. The rep who says “it’s not the best, but it’s cheap”. The founder who jokes on a podcast that the budget range is “for people who don’t know better”. The internal nickname for the entry-level tier that leaks into a screenshot. None of them feel like a big moment when they happen. Neither did a laugh line at a conference.
Your customers will forgive you for being simple, basic or cheap. They signed up for that. What they will not forgive is being made to feel daft for choosing you.
The postscript is almost too neat. In December 2025 Ratner was reported to be trying to buy back H Samuel and Ernest Jones, two of the chains he ran in 1991. Signet said it was not in talks.
What is the one thing your team jokes about internally that you would never want a customer to overhear?