There’s a snarky dance of longstanding, involving members of the media, bloggers and those in the PR community who commit offenses against the English language. You can find the latest pirouette in Robin Wauters’ screed from TechCrunch (10 Words I Would Love To See Banned From Press Releases). It’s a mix of valid points and cheap shots, and I couldn’t resist a bit of editorializing.
I really meant to do a search of TechCrunch for instances of “impact” being used as a verb, but there are limits to snark, I suppose. Anyway, here goes:
1) LEADING / LEADER
You know the kind: “Initech, the leading blah in blah blah blah, has partnered with Initrode, leader in blah blah blahblah blah blah blah.” Every single time a press release carries either one of these words in the first sentence, I cringe. Why? Because if everyone is leading, no one is. Period. PR people, next time you start writing a news announcement, ask yourself if you really should be using the words ‘leading’ or ‘leader’ just because it’s easy and everyone is doing it.
We don't care what other companies say about themselves. While one could argue that the word “leader” is overused, it's still appropriate for many of our clients, because "leader" doesn't imply size or scale or anything other than a compelling technology that merits attention. A "leadership" position also implies thought leadership, which means "ideas worth listening to." Should we call our clients "followers"?
2) BEST / MOST / FASTEST / LARGEST / BIGGEST / etc.
Emphasizing the strengths of the company you’re pitching is obviously a good thing. But does anyone realize how meaningless these terms become when they are followed up by something so blatantly untrue or tied to a small niche that it’s just painful to read? I’m specifically thinking about press releases that commence with something like “Initech, the largest manufacturer of red staplers engraved with our company logo, has just won the Buzo Award for the most uncreative use of the word ‘largest’ in the history of mankind.” Handle these words with care.
I agree with this, mostly. While we rarely say "biggest" or "fastest," those should be statements of fact, not modifiers that can't be substantiated. In that case, not using those terms can mean withholding information. Why do that?
3) INNOVATIVE / INNOVATION
The mother of all voidness. How many truly innovative products are launched on a yearly basis, regardless of the sector? How many times have you seen something get the ‘innovation’ label without merit? Unless you or your clients find a cure for all cancers, simply stop using it, starting today. Now that would be innovative.
Should be used sparingly, yes... but there are times when it applies. Again, its use by others shouldn't invalidate our claim, if we can back it up. How many ways can one say “new”? Are we now into blacklisting words? Surely, using terms that already exist is preferable to making up new ones – right?
4) REVOLUTIONARY
Much like the above, terrible word to be using in press releases. What exactly about your product is going to make people leave their houses to demonstrate, oppose their government, riot, etc.? Oh, sorry, you mean the company you’re pitching is not going to change the world but it is going to completely change the way an industry thinks about your business? Safe bet: it’s not going to. Likely you’re just doing the old ‘wishful thinking’ routine, and everyone knows you are.
Totally agree. A useless word. You won't find it in our news releases.
5) AWARD-WINNING
Trust me, telling anyone willing to listen that you’ve been recognized with this or that award won’t be providing you with any goodwill right off the bat. There are exceptions to this rule, but very few (they include the Nobel Prize, a Pulitzer, a Crunchie or a Europa Award). Basically it’s like going around a party informing everyone that you’ve had sex with a human being last week: I’m sure it matters to you a great deal - and hopefully to the other person as well - but the rest of us likely don’t give a hoot. We also think it’s kind of sad that you are looking for someone to confirm or recognize your accomplishments that way. A tip: unless you’re announcing that you’ve actually won an award (which by the way is only very rarely newsworthy), leave it out.
Probably the silliest inclusion on this list. Awards are facts, and many of them matter. They exist for a reason and any company that doesn't leverage third-party validation is simply brain-dead.
6) DISRUPTIVE / DISRUPTION
Newsflash: a product or service is only very, very, very rarely disruptive. If there is a truly ground-breaking one, it’s also never disruptive out of the gate, for it can take years or even decades to turn an entire industry upside down. The fact that you’d use the word in a press release speaks volumes about your ability to tell your head from your ass: anything truly disruptive doesn’t happen overnight, and you can’t capture ‘disruption’ in a news announcement pushed out at a given time and date. Besides, if something is genuinely disruptive I’m sure it will require little push from PR people or firms to get the word out there.
Overused, true. But the categorical statements above are as lazy and ill-considered as the behavior they're critiquing. We have introduced some technologies that did, in fact, prove disruptive in their markets. Are we compelled to discuss them in hushed, self-effacing tones because others are hyping junk?
In the same boat as the words ‘innovative’, ‘revolutionary’ and ‘disruptive’: so often misused in the past that it now looks like you’re practicing your skills to write quality satire when you use it to tout a company or product in a press release.
8)
Overused. If you have an updated version of your product to announce, why not just say so? I simply cannot understand what people are trying to tell me when they say their new release is ‘next-gen’. Is it too advanced or complex for me to use and will only young children have the ability to understand what you’re doing when they grow up? Did your previous product version stink so bad that you needed to skip an entire generation of iterations to finally get it right?
See "disruptive," above.
Partnering with other companies can be good - and newsworthy too, though not often - but it doesn’t help you get more attention or goodwill when you announce a strategic partnership, agreement or relationship. We’re assuming it fits in both your strategy and the one of the company or companies you team up with, otherwise you wouldn’t be forming an alliance, right? It’s not like your agreement suddenly gets a whole other dimension because it’s labeled ’strategic’, honestly.
Hello? We don't make up these terms. If our clients have signed a piece of paper calling a relationship "strategic," we will as well. I don't quite get the concern. Should we call these "non-strategic"? Not all deals rise to this level, but those that do should be labeled as such.
10) SYNERGY
Simply defined, synergy means that the whole in combination is greater than the sum of the individual parts working on their own. Used properly, the word can describe the magnified effects of two drugs taken together, parasites that enforce each other’s destructive effects and compounded health risks due to toxic chemicals. When applied to corporations, it means a financial benefit that a company aims to realize when it merges with or acquires another corporation. As history teaches us, there’s rarely any synergy involved when companies melt together or one takes over the other (cough, AOL-Time Warner). PR people, you’d be doing yourself a serious favor banning this one from all future press releases.
No argument here. One of the worst words ever coined.
