Parsing Words

This one is filled with goodies.

Among the words/phrases used to smear actual meaning:

• Leverage
• Unifying Campaign
• Global
• Cultural Activations
• Emotional Core
• Shared Human Experience
• Powerful Anthem
• Movement
• Resonating
• Story-Rich
• Resonance

There is no mention that sales actually increased. There is a reference to an "18% increase in purchase consideration", whatever that means.

Granted, the purpose of many marketing campaigns is to create awareness - I myself preach it.

But at some point somebody must buy something.

I recall working at Nordstrom ... one year we spent something like $15,000,000 on Fashion Week in NYC. We asked our customers to download a program (pre-app days) to keep up with all the action that week (our marketing agency came up with this idea). I don't remember the exact numbers, but a few thousand customers downloaded the program ... not a failure but certainly an expensive way to burn money.

I recall performing the analysis of our Fashion Week campaign, thousands in sales against fifteen million in cost. I recall my boss (the Chief Marketing Officer) saying "your analysis will never see the light of day". Instead we used phrases designed to smear the real meaning ... stuff like "resonating" and "powerful" and "community".

A trade journalist once told me that "everybody wants to read a case study but nobody wants to share a case study." There is a good reason for that. If something truly worked, why would you give a blue print to the competition?

Of course, this means you instead get to read all about stuff that resonates with the "emotional core" of the customer.