George Orwell wrote: “Most educated people don’t realise how little impression abstract words make on the average man.”
We agree. So it’s always been a mystery to us why businesses seem to want to pepper their communications with them.
Words like innovation, integrity, quality, excellence, engagement. Vital business concepts, yes, but all pretty worthless words when used in isolation, as they don’t tell us anything, really – who decides what represents quality, for instance, or what constitutes innovation in any given business?
Maybe the easiest way to demonstrate our point is to create an example? Let’s assume you’d like to donate to a charity, but you’re torn between two promoting the same cause.
One says: “We’re always looking for new and different ideas for raising money. Then we identify the projects you’d like us to support, and find ways to make your money go further in helping the interests we share.”
The other says: “As a charity our values are innovation, customer focus and quality.”
They’re actually both saying the same thing, but in different ways. Which one tells you more? Which would you be more likely to support? We know our answer. So why, oh why, does almost every company want to use copy like the second option?
Another example? OK, so we’re writing something for a rail company – a newsletter, web page or flyer maybe. They’ll want us to say they’re innovative, because every company wants us to say they’re innovative. (How innovative is that, incidentally?).
But do they mean they’re always updating timetables, or offering new ticketing packages, or they’ve got some new rolling stock, fixed the air conditioning, refreshed the menu items? Who knows, and even if it was all of the above, would the innovation be to our liking? We’re still totally in the dark.
As George Orwell pointed out, this most fashionable of words really doesn’t leave much impression. Unfortunately, pointing this out is a battle we have almost every day, and one we rarely win. Don’t ask me why.
Really useful. Totally agree, and would go a bit further even. If some company’s product/service has little to offer in reality, they usually sort of want to inflate the copy with pompous words. As a consumer, I run as fast as I can when I smell this. As a copywriter, I do hope not to encounter clients who don’t see this point.
Thank you!