Infernal Comms: the Write the Talk blog

Groupon: get a grip

There's news today that Groupon is being investigated by the OFT over its advertising practices, among other things. One suspects that the story will run and run, so some positive PR would help along the way.

Sadly, Groupon fell into a common trap and wheeled out someone to spout unhelpful gibberish:

"Groupon constantly strives for business practices that are in the best interest of consumers. We are constantly evolving business process to ensure customers receive the best possible experience at the highest standards."

Forgive me for intruding, but that's not going to help. The only people at whom that message can be directed are Groupon customers. You could make an argument for shareholders being the target audience, given the calamitous drop in the share price recently, but they're as interested as anybody in public sentiment towards the company.

So, in the circumstances, consultancy guff is not what's needed. "Constantly striving" sounds more like the effect of a severe bout of constipation than a genuine commitment to getting better. The only redeeming feature of "constantly evolving business process" is that it's an all-in-one winning line in Bullsh*t Bingo. As for "the best possible experience at the highest standards", repetition doesn't make misplaced hyperbole any more effective.

There are 32 words of emptiness, a banal vacuum where there should be a nugget of confidence and humility. It would have been much better to say something like:

We're always working on doing things better, but sometimes we might make a mistake. We'll work with the OFT to see if there's a problem, and we'll make sure our customers get the service they expect.

It might not be perfect, but it only took two minutes to sound like a real person instead of a spokesbot. In their position, I think Groupon could have done with taking a moment before jumping at the PR version of Buy it Now.

Happy Slapping: when the language doesn't fit the crime

Another day; another assault on an innocent person for the benefit of a YouTube posting. This time, the incident led to the death of grandfather Ekram Haque in front of his 3 year old grand-daughter. The appropriateness of the sentence for the teenagers convicted of this man's manslaughter is a debate for another place. What I'm interested in here is the terminology.

Happy slapping appeared as a term soon after phones gained video technology. Slap your mate while someone's filming it, then have a laugh at their expense as you share the resulting clip. The only happy people were the perpetrators and it was their moniker that stuck; the victims most probably called it something else but those descriptions never got a look in.

Controlling the language around an activity or a behaviour allows people to influence how that activity is seen and makes counter-arguments much more difficult to land. Happy slapping is just a bit of horseplay, isn't it? Only a killjoy would try and put a stop to it. Video mugging would be an altogether more difficult sell.

File-sharing, legal highs, joy-riding: all are the creations of people who want to lay a veneer of inoffensiveness on something that does not deserve it.

So if you can influence the vocabulary of what you do, your competitors and detractors will struggle to make an impression.

When we is for weasels: a Raoul Moat story

There are times when either your message or your audience's state of mind is not what you would want it to be. Perhaps you're announcing job cuts or apologising for a mistake. In an extreme case you might be attempting to build a dialogue with someone who has threatened to kill your employees, as Detective Chief Superintendent Neil Adamson had to do in the recent case of alleged murderer Raoul Moat.

DCS Adamson made a personal appeal to Moat towards the end of the manhunt, and he did that with repeated use of the word "I": "I can assure you," he said. "I'd like you to know ...".

When you want people to listen to you and believe what you are saying, there is no place for the weasel "we". 

Taking personal responsibility for what you are saying and doing helps your audience pay attention to you and your message. They may not like it, but they're listening.

Using a phrase like "we've done what we can to minimise the impact on staff" only sends a signal that you are diffusing responsibility for what's happening so that no-one gets the blame.

Use the mighty "I" and you will at least be seen as a leader. It's not easy, but then it's not meant to be.

Why Does the I in IT Stand For Impenetrable?

Thanks to the guys at SoftExpert for providing the material for today's post. I've been getting their monthly email for a little while now - I don't remember signing up but I'm glad I did. Much as I'd lke to tell you more about what SoftExpert do, I have to say I'm not entirely sure. That monthly email announcing the latest news on sales successes and new product launches is, well, unreadable. Here's a quote from a company director talking about an event the company's running in Spain shortly: