When it comes to humor programming, American media organizations always start out by telling you they’re funny or crazy or something similar: look at all the radio stations offering a drive-time “Morning Zoo.” Comedy Central had a similar approach to brand: a stylized drawing of the globe with a bunch of skyscrapers poking out of one end, intended to establish their wacky bona fides in some way we couldn’t get at. When you wrap deep satire like The Colbert Report in a wacky package, the whole thing seems cheaper.

Because humor is about risk and surprise. Comics know this: you have to let the audience do some work. If you start out telling people you’re funny, by the time you get to the joke, you’ve robbed it of its power: it’s called a punch line because you don’t see it coming. Humor works because the audience expects you to say or do one thing, and you do something entirely different.

This was our governing principle. The package didn’t need to be funny, because the content was. In fact, a deadpan delivery worked in two ways: first, it pushed the content forward; and second, the dramatic tension that resulted from framing comic material in dry, corporate language (even the name “Comedy Central” brings to mind some bizarre Soviet-style bureaucracy) became a meta-joke. It became, in itself . . . funny.

So what began as a simple refresh became a complete transformation across all media, and required a great deal of courage from Comedy Central’s management. The result was an example of brand as content and behavior. We did end up delivering a trademark (based on the “comedyright” symbol we developed for packaging and punctuation), but even if you took that away, the tone, unique framing of content, and consistency of execution would tell you what you’re watching.