I hate marketing speak

I hate marketing speak

Posted Apr 28, 2006 17:18 UTC (Fri) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954)
In reply to: I hate marketing speak by proski
Parent article: Software's 'stack wars' (ZDNet)

I hate marketing speak too, but I actually don't think marketing speak tends to misuse words like that. Marketing tends to hold on to the accurate terms until the misused terminology is so pervasive that the marketer's message won't be understood without it.

I think it's because they know they might be held to the correct definitions -- they can't promise broadband if they aren't actually delivering it. ("Broadband" isn't a risk anymore because it's commonly understood to mean "fast internet.")

The scourge of marketing speak, on the other hand, is making up new, vague terms all by themselves instead of using the existing well understood ones. They do that to present an appearance of selling something new (same reason corporate management does), and to sell an image in preference to something concrete, whose value can't be manipulated.

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