Sticking to the simple point

Posted on November 11, 2011 by Krista

To keep abreast of industry trends, issues, new products, events, training opportunities, learnings, blunders, amusing anecdotes and a smidgen of gossip, I’m subscribed to a number of blogs, news summaries and e-newsletters.

There is a balance to be had, as who has the time to digest much of the information overload that makes its way into the inbox on a daily basis? Often it’s a case of skim reading a headline. Too often, these ‘nice to have but not important’ emails sit in my inbox for a matter of days before I do a mass clear out without opening the said entry and send it straight to the recycle bin.

But I believe keeping an eye open is important to stay up to date with the variety of communication lessons that people around the world are voluntarily sharing instantly by the second. Whatever industry or sector you’re working in, there are tomes of online resources available to subscribe to, comment on, agree or disagree – but it gets you thinking. Some of the content I find is useful to share with my colleagues and generate an internal discussion, hopefully to inspire creativity or new ways of thinking.

Which brings me to an interesting article targeting would be authors listing ‘intensifiers’ that should be avoided in your writing. It lists some gems, including ‘awesome,’ ‘absolute’ ‘fantastic’ and ‘very’.

It got me to thinking about terms that are overused in media relations and too often find their way into a well-meaning press release.

Obvious clichés that come straight to mind are ‘unique’ – is it really? ‘Exciting’, surely this is subjective. ‘Implement’ and other corporate speak – could you simplify it and say ‘start’ or ‘apply’? And, why is everything ‘forward looking’?

Going back to when I was journalist, the most off-putting thing I hated seeing in a press release was ‘one-stop-shop’, but at the time too many marketeers saw it as their unique selling point.

This isn’t a new topic, another blogger has undertaken an analysis looking at the top overused marketing buzzwords polluting press releases – he lists 100 of them, but I thought the top 10 would give pause for thought:

  1. Leader (of what?)
  2. Leading (how do you know?)
  3. Best (according to who?)
  4. Top (of what?)
  5. Unique (really?)
  6. Great (again, according to who?)
  7. Solution (this is another term that has become overused)
  8. Largest (of what?)
  9. Innovative and 10. Innovator (these creep into press releases all the time and therefore becomes meaningless).

I’m sure there are more, but the lesson to be learned with respect to media relations is how would you tell the story to your husband or wife over dinner. What are the facts in simple, plain English, not patronising terms and can you simplify your copy without the ‘intensifiers’?

Achieve this and you will have achieved a small victory not only for media relations, but also for the English language.

 

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