Avoiding Corporate Babble
Fast Company recently released a video providing an amusing insight into different personalities you might encounter in the workplace (not to mention some great ways to antagonise colleagues). While the lineup included the Gossip, the Uber Introvert, and the Bambi, for us the stand out was Mr. Corporate Speak.
As a strategic creative agency, our vertical is in thinking outside the box to send your branding messages over the wall. By leveraging all of our knowledge assets, we work in synergy with you and your team to determine which ideas should be blue-skied or sent to the parking lot. Our core competency is in peeling the onion to help you demonstrate who you are and what you stand for. Whether you’re on a burning platform or looking to move the needle, our bleeding edge solutions will assist you to make hay. To open the kimono and learn more about branding solutions, reach out to belinda@briogroup.com.au.
Whaaaaaaaat? Let’s try that again in English.
Corporate jargon in marketing collateral doesn’t only dilute your message and prevent your customers from understanding exactly who you are and what you do; it also positions you as being convoluted, cold and impersonal.
Truly great brands use archetypes to avoid this messaging and target their ideal clients. Disney are an Innocent brand whose experiences are tied to renewing or retaining faith. Their target customers instinctively understand both the types of products and services they offer, and the role these products and services are intended to play in their lives (to make them happy).
Disney understand that corporate jargon is stiff and unrelatable. Their brand messages and marketing campaigns are consistent with their archetype, delighting their audience and increasing brand trust and reputation in the process.
By having a clear understanding of your brand archetype, you can use language that resounds with your customers and demonstrates the actual and intangible value you provide.
You don’t need to be a multinational conglomerate like Disney to use brand-consistent messaging. To learn more about how a brand archetype can transform your business, contact belinda@briogroup.com.au
PS Here are a few of our favourite corporate jargon words and their translations. Feel free to try and sneak them into your next business meeting (or don’t and look that little bit smarter).
Vertical – a specific area of expertise
Think outside the box – approaching a business problem in an unconventional fashion
Over the wall – send or present something to clients
Solution – collection of technologies too abstract or complex to describe
Leverage – how a situation or environment can be manipulated or controlled
Synergy – cooperation
Blue sky thinking/blue skied – brainstormed
Parking lot – where ideas go to die
Core Competency – person or firm’s fundamental strength
Peel the onion – delve into a problem one layer at a time to thoroughly understand what’s causing all the trouble
Burning platform – impending crisis
Move the needle – how your plan and product are superior to competitors
Bleeding edge – so cutting-edge that a new term needed to be created
Make hay – being productive or successful in a short period of time
Open the kimono – reveal information
Reach out – set up a meeting
SWAT team – a group of experts assembled to solve a problem or tackle an opportunity
Best practice – a method or technique that delivers superior results compared with other methods and techniques
Ducks in a row – make a plan
Ecosystem – the vast, interlinked collection of designers, vendors, manufacturers, customers that defines a particular industry
Drill down – examining a subject more closely
Boil the ocean – waste time
Hard stop – a very serious and very important end to something (a meeting, etc)
Giving 110% – telling someone you failed math
Window of opportunity – brief amount of time in which to take action
