Would You Say This to a Client?

I've written before about how easy it is for consultants to let meaningless words and phrases slip into their marketing communications. Here's an example that belongs in the marketing hall of shame:

“Our expertise in On Demand Business can help you cope with an ultradynamic marketplace by developing an innovation-driven strategy which increases agility as it blunts commoditization. We can even help you better execute your strategy in play.”

That's a direct quote from a consulting firm's recent ad in the Wall Street Journal. Sorry, but I have no idea what the sentences in that ad really means.

I ran the passage through the jargon-busting tool, The Bullfighter (www.fightthebull.com), which had this to say to the ad writer: you “shower readers with gratuitous, interminable and often weighty if not impossibly labyrinthine prose."

In a face-to-face meeting with a client, would you say anything like the nonsense in that ad? I doubt it. Then why write that way?

Your marketing communications should say something meaningful about who you are and what you can do to help clients. That's what they want to know--not how much mind-numbing jargon you can fit into an ad.

Comments

[JSLogan]

Along the same lines, here is a mission statement I found while surfing the Internet one evening. I've long used it as an example of what not to do, unless your strategy is to utterly confuse your prospect. I've read it countless times and I still can't figure out what this company does or why you would ever hire them:

"Company X is a results oriented training and consulting firm promoting sustainable economic growth globally by developing entrepreneurship programs focusing on capacity-building techniques, skills and knowledge. Company X provides needs assessment to determine capacity-building strategies, training design and implementation in small and medium enterprise development, services focused on empowering women through entrepreneurship, and technical assistance and business advisory services."

[Mike Bawden]

What a great lesson and example. Thanks for this post, Mike.

I've linked to this post from my website ("Much Ado About Marketing") in the hope that some more advertising creatives and agency managers will have a chance to read your take on writing this kind of copy.

Also, the link to fightthebull.com is very helpful, as well. Immediately bookmarked it.

Regards,

Mike Bawden
Brand Central Station