Murder communication with a thousand buzzwords
March 18th, 2006I read an article on a site called Marketingtoday.com which caught my eye; it was about the use of meaningless buzz words and management speak in communications. I love this stuff, and it will only get worse I’m sure.
We (and our customers) are comstantly bombarded with communications through an increasing number of channels; email, print, blogs, your mobile phone. So what is the impact of using meaningless words, and why do people use them?
* They use them because it is easy; words like “solutions” and “synergies” are so generic and meaningless that you can stick them in a text willy-nilly and it won’t make any difference.Now thinking about what you actually mean takes a lot more effort.
* They believe that using these words make them sound professional, as if they know what they are doing. Wrong. It makes you sound like everyone else.
Buzzwords, management speak, marketing speak essentially do two things: they make you sound like everyone else and they make your readers switch off in boredom. And that is the exact opposite of what a marketer wants to achieve; i.e. stand out and excite.
Have a look at this page on the BBC website and scroll down to find contributions from readers…it’s a worry…
“Marketing departments tend be real experts in this area - if anyone can put a pig in a dress and call it grandma, they can! For example, Private Eye magazine runs a series called “Solutions” containing gems like “inter-paper fastening solutions” (staplers).”
I think you get the picture.
