Maximizing Our Skill Sets To Enable Synergistic Crap
January 30th, 2010 | 
Author: Maximizing Our Skill Sets To Enable Synergistic Crap
Today’s deliverable is a bestinclass solution.
So why arent you psyched about reading more? After all business people the world over get paid big bucks to spew that kind of nonsense.
That’s what I realized while reading a great new book called Why Business People Speak Like Idiots. A quick and easy read it implores people to use their own voice at workbecause thats what people like and remember as opposed to using jargon and doublespeak that makes you sound like everyone else.
Of course that argument made perfect sense to me as someone who writes with a distinct voice. But then reading the books reallife examples of corporate bullshit I got chills down my spine as the ugly truth dawned on me:
Advertising professionals and marketing people use as much meaningless jargon as the most PowerPointaddicted management consultants. And even the supposedly best creative boutiques are guilty of this.
I once sent my portfolio to such an agencyone that had a cleverly written web site that even poked fun at unnecessarily complex marketing jargon. After an initial inquiry and a few work samples the Creative Manager sent me a cheery note that said Send it all! We are looking and I’d love to see the rest of your work. Any format you have. Look forward to seeing the rest of your stuff! Yes she tossed in the exclamation points for added eagerness and perkiness.
Two weeks later I got a clearly generic cutandpasted reply stating At the moment we do not have any openings that match your skill set. However we will keep your information on file and contact you if something appropriate arises.
I politely replied inquiring for specific feedback but got no response. It was as if aliens swooped down and replaced a human Creative Manager with a robotic corporate drone. But even worse such language ran directly contrary to the agencys brand philosophy as demonstrated on their web site.
And thats the point. Ad agencies as a whole are brands unto themselves the people at the agency and their correspondence an extension of that brand. Treat your employees coworkers clients and all the other people who come into contact with your agency like human beings and only then will you have an authentic respectable brand. Pepper your communication with jargon and your agency will sound like an insurance agency not an advertising agency.
Theres no excuse for an advertising agency to hide behind corporate doublespeak. In fact its completely hypocritical given what we love to preach to our clients about the simplicity of powerful direct language.
Now lets contrast that ad agency with a different service business a company that gets it.
Southwest Airlines doesnt even accept emails from their customers. Because as its stated on their website:
Our Customers deserve accurate specific personal and professionally written answers and it takes time to research investigate and compose a real business letter. We answer every letter we receive in the order it arrivesto keep our costs low our People productive our operating efficiency high and our responses warm and personal.
And Southwest is in the airline business or the freedom business for you GSDM fans. Perhaps that attitude is one of the reasons Southwest is making money while nearly every other airline is losing money even as you read this. Southwest may not be a glamorous brand but at least its an authentic one.
We need some of that authenticity in our business. Advertising is a selfcritical selfreverential selfabsorbed business. We spend so much time talking about advertising to other advertising people youd think none of us working in the business would be able to tolerate jargon much less spew it ourselves. But we embrace it toss it into our agency website philosophy sections and cram it into new business presentationseven when we know that whats being said is meaningless.
Id love to hear if youve been able to resist the temptation to couch your words in meaningless drivel. But please dont reinvent by wheel by ideating a paradigmshifting holistic manifesto. The ability to swallow that kind of crap simply isnt in my skill set.
About the writer:nbsp;nbsp;Branding. Religion. Censorship. Office politics. Global politics. Sexual politics. And getting drunk during a job interview.
Since 2002 Danny G. a.k.a. Dan Goldgeier has been writing the most provocative advertising columns ever published. They’re all witty thoughtful and probing and a must read for those who want a perspective rarely seen in traditional industry publications.
An Atlantabased copywriter and ad school graduate Dan has worked at shops big and small. He reads incessantly about advertising and is a whiz at rock roll trivia. Learn more about him by visiting his copywriting website or AdColumnist.com the View From The Cheap Seats Archive website. You may also find articles by Danny G at TalentZoo.com.
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