Telling it like it is

19 May 2006



Why waste words when you can put things simply?


There can be no words quite as hackneyed, and thus quite so likely to be met with a snort of derision, as: solution and partnership.

This over-exposed double-act writ large in the lexicon of marketing mantras is pretty much shop-soiled by now and surely way past its sell-by date. Other well-worn words & phrases include “standards of excellence”; “going upstream”, and “consolidation”.

A label is a label. A carton is a carton. A pouch is flexible enough for putting something liquid into. Otherwise, a bottle is more rigidly designed for the purpose, but not as much as a can. They’re all perfectly good examples of efficient, effective packaging. Rather than enhancing their worth, calling them solutions has the self-aggrandising smack of dustbinmen passed off as refuse consultants.

Likewise dubbing customers partners; the implication being that there’s more to a service relationship founded on the business of buying and selling than the reality of a cash transaction. And well, yes there is – but next time you’re paying for having just endured root canal treatment try thinking of the dentist as your partner and see how comfortably that fits.

Choosing to call goods and services by names that are obliquely correct is a means of differentiation; fair enough in an over-crowded marketplace characterised by commoditisation. The problem, however, is that it can also echo the resonance of hype and evasion. The more superlative, the less supported the claim, viz. “a totally solutions-driven partnership”.

And there’s that other clichéd phrase: “adding value” – trotted out regularly as the panacea to restore any under-performing business model to improved health. Pardon me for sounding a touch cynical, but it’s a fair bet this’ll mean something completely different to a supplier than to a customer: extra bells and whistles, not necessarily required, to one, and a better price to the other.

Words are important; they should encapsulate cause and effect. But as ever, it ain’t what you say it’s the way that you say it. Less is invariably more. Doing simply what it says on the can might not be the world’s most exciting promotional proposition, but it at least avoids the likelihood of a jaded response. Something perhaps to consider when next striving to raise standards of excellence?


Des King Des King


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