Who talks like that?

Recently, I heard David Meerman Scott give an interesting keynote at the Marketing Profs digital conference. While all of his presentation was worth listening to, the part that had me cheering (and if you follow me on Twitter, you heard me) was the simple recognition that words like "cutting-edge" and "robust" are overused. Not necessary. Meaningless.

Sure. I know that, and you know that, too, right? I've long been fighting the good copywriting fight on the belief that people selling ideas and services and products to other people ought to talk like, well, people. Where did this language actually come from, anyway? And what does it really mean?

So it's not us. It's all those other folks who are sending out gobbledygook disguised as press releases and marketing brochures or whose web sites require a third reading before you realize that, wait, it's not you. It really doesn't say anything. The problem is that, in our efforts to keep up with the competition, sometimes well-meaning marketing managers decide to copy the competition's mistakes and bad judgment. And the next thing you know, everyone has a robust, cutting-edge solution that is going to revolutionize the way we do business. We are all standing for quality and customer service. Our approaches are uniquely aligned to meet the needs of today's customers.

David advocated a common sense approach: that we just say no. Stop using this language. Scrub it right out of our materials. Why? It's not authentic and it definitely doesn't set your message apart.

Are you still putting that kind of stuff out there into your customers, clients and influencers hands? Well, if you are, you're certainly not alone. Consider the following nugget quoted in this week's edition of PRWeek:

"GE has a strong set of global businesses in infrastructure, finance and media aligned to meet today's needs, including the demand for global infrastructure; growing and changing demographics that need access to healthcare, finance, and information and entertainment; and environmental technologies."

Who talks like that? (That was what PRWeek's writer asked, and I'm asking, too.)

The article goes on to make the case that Twitter, the current darling of the social media world, might be the thing that finally saves us from ourselves. Since "tweets," or blasts of information to your Twitter followers, can only be 140 characters, you've got to make it short and sweet. If you insist on using "cutting-edge," for example, you're already down 12 characters.

Will Twittering usher in a new era of succinct marketing and PR messages? It's possible. You wouldn't find the above sentence from GE's web site winging through the Twittersphere. But then you wouldn't find the abbreviations and texting lingo that's increasingly acceptable on Twitter in your company's press materials or marketing collateral either. Brief messages aren't always better messages.

I say the jury will be out for a while.