Fun! I found some great words to update my earlier rant post about rotten differentiators. Clay over at American Small Business writes, "Don’t Use These Five Words in Your Ads". In addition to Service and Quality, which I’d also dinged as useless, he adds:
- Value: too relative to be meaningful anymore
- Caring: hard to prove
- Integrity. Basically, his point is, if you really have it, you don’t need to be shouting about it.
In defining brands with clients, I really prefer that we demonstrate what we mean, rather than yap about it using the same old words.
I think any of these concepts could be fine differentiators, but we have to select language that doesn’t trigger a person’s B.S. filter. Instead, we should evoke emotion with imagery or stories.
Which words do you think should be banned forever from advertising?
