Numerous times a week, my boss forwards me a bunch of things. Sometimes it's all just a bunch of crap: forwarded forwards, jokes, company goals, etc. Sometimes there's something acutally relevant and everything to do with what I do. Case in point: how not to communicate with a load of bull in your message. The premise is, the simpler the message, the more marketable you are. Forget "leverage", "bandwidth", "empowerment" or "paradigm shift". Stay simple and true, and you're bound to be seen as CREDIBLE. So, I go to Deloitte Consulting to test out the Bullfighter that they claim will do a clean-up job of your bull-laden copy. After the download, I'm treated to a dramatic Flash production of a Spaniard bullfighter, taking down words like "synergy", "thoughtware" and "extensible". At the end of the little film, a steaming pile of you-know-what is stopped dead in its tracks.
I proceeded to test out this Bullfighter and found our company's copy virtually bull-free. Just goes to show we don't know how to use industry jargon to sell in the first place and we've never understood it ourselves at any rate. Testing other copies from various websites and you'll get a varied mix of words that are considered bull. Take the blog entry below for example: world class - "A tired expression that has lost its meaning. Give it a rest. Whenever someone says something is world-class, it isn't." So, they suggest the following replacements: "best", "superior", "excellent". Hmm... I don't remember when the last time the words best, superior or excellent were associated with credibility. It makes me think on the other hand, of competing brands of detergents or stain removers; of superlatives trying to outdo each other rather than focusing on the most important thing at hand - getting the stain out. At this point in the timeline, it's hard not to get jaded and it's a fierce job trying to go above and beyond the height of great copy writing.
11:30 AM | |
