It's about style
Posted by Tom Gable
In looking for new content for a speech on jargon later this month, we set up news trackers to see how all the leaders of the world were doing in providing seamless, end-to-end, leading edge, next generation, turnkey solutions to whatever niche they serve. Amazingly, the results mirror those from the first similar survey a decade ago and five subsequent tracking surveys. Every other release on Business Wire and PR Newswire comes from a leader and most of them are selling solutions, rather than specific products or well-defined services.
David Meerman Scott in his Gobbledygook surveys and others, including yours truly, have written about this extensively. For this exercise, we’ve pulled a few choice clauses from PR news releases and company boilerplates and inserted below without attribution. Since they are all leaders, instant name identification should be easy. We do identify one company, because it deserves recognition for hitting the Trifecta, incorporating three great terms disliked by most media into its boilerplate: leading provider, seamless solutions and performance-driven.
The Trifecta!
AccountNet is a leading solutions and professional services provider focused on the financial and government sectors. AccountNet creates performance-driven, seamless solutions that add considerable value, and utilizes proven system-integration methodologies and expertise to help clients capitalize on their existing infrastructures successfully and cost effectively
Whew. What are they selling?
Now, on to more leaders in many niches, with a few comments for the good of the order. And if you can identify any of these, post a comment. The person identifying the most leaders will get an Amazon gift certificate for buying reference books on style, grammar and the new world of PR.
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the world’s leading provider of high-quality lenticular large format and custom-printed plastics
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creates performance-driven, seamless solutions that add considerable value (the daily double)
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(the company) goal is to be an end-to-end service provider to its customers by furnishing customized and integrated “turn-key” solutions
- a leading provider of affordable easy-to-use enterprise-class systems management software as a service
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an industry-leading provider of end-to-end web hosting services (they could be seamless, too!)
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an impressive suite of proprietary products and services to create seamless solutions that meet each client’s highly specific needs (meeting unspecific needs wouldn’t work that well)
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leading provider of email traffic shaping software (my email is in bad shape; I could use a seamless solution from these guys to get it into shape)
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a leading provider of electronic engines for the optically connected digital world (would love to know more about this niche!)
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the nation’s leading provider of cleaner electricity and carbon offset solutions (wonder if the leader in dirty electricity can use some PR help)
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the leading provider of turnkey virtual communications and virtual office solutions (we could use some real solutions)
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world’s leading provider of WiMAX™ and wireless broadband solutions
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a leading provider of advanced font products
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a leading provider of hip-hop ring tones and mobile content (probably a crowded market where leadership is critical to success)
Tags: creative, editing, hype, jargon, marketing, news, PR, spin, writing
