A lot of people exaggerate the silliness inherent in corporate public relations. (That takes some serious exaggerating, by the way, and I salute those who can pull it off.) But every time I find myself wanting to deride corporate PR as the most transparently absurd thing on the face of the Earth, I look at the practices of business journalists and remember: Someone has to counterbalance these people.
When a journalist decides to do a story about your company that you’d rather not have done, at least it makes sense to have someone on your side who knows a little something about how the game is played. By contrast, if you wish they’d write a story about you but can’t get their attention, it helps to have someone on your side who knows how to push their buttons.
That said, some of the expressions and phrase-turning that comes from the minds of PR people are to clear communication as the gunk in your bathtub is to gourmet pasta sauce. Often, this is the result of risk-averse thinking.
“How can I say this in a way that runs the least risk of upsetting anyone?” wonders the corporate PR pro. The answer is obvious: Say whatever it is in a way that makes no sense to anyone. You can’t get mad at something if you’re thinking to yourself, “What does that even mean?”
Since this is the Best Of issue, I herewith bring you the Best of Corporate PR Speak, along with my indispensable translations. If you memorize these phrases, you’ll be far dumber than you were before you started reading this column. I hope. For your sake.
“We are extremely pleased and plan no changes.”
Translation: We have no idea how we’re going to fix this problem, but we’re working day and night to think of something, and we’ll let you know when we do.
You might have heard this one recently from the mouths of CBS executives when rumors started that they’re trying to cut ties with anchor Katie Couric, whom they’re paying $15 million a year to dig the Evening News deeper into last place.
The chairman of General Motors also pronounced himself pleased after the company’s recent announcement that it lost $38 billion last year. Because who wants $38 billion sitting around? Do you realize the warehouse space you need to hold all that money? Good riddance.
“The company and Bob C. Jones have mutually agreed to a parting of the ways at this time. It’s an amicable parting, and we thank Mr. Jones for his service to the company.”
Translation: What a stiff. The bribe money we had to pay him to leave was a bargain. We would have paid him twice that much. But it’s a good thing we didn’t, because we’ll need the rest of the money to pay our lawyers after he sues us.
Poor Bob. Not everyone’s suited to gainful employment. Fortunately for Bob and many others like him, there are inattentive, indecisive bosses who can’t ever bring themselves to fire anyone. So Bob stayed on decades past the point where he offered any usefulness whatsoever—until the company finally had no choice but to do something.
But it was an amicable parting. When the security guards escorted him from the building five minutes after telling him to gather his belongings, he didn’t stab either one of them. Of course, the plastic handcuffs had a deterrent effect, but he could have tried biting. Good luck, Bob!
“There are no considerations of any change in ownership at this time. The company is focused on serving its customers and generating consistently high value.”
Translation: We’re still working out the sale price. Call us at the end of the week so we can deny it again.
Now, there’s sort of a reason for this one. You can’t exactly confirm you’re in negotiations to sell when there’s still a chance the sale will break down, because everyone will know you want out, and you’ll start losing employees and seeing any potential future offers drop.
But wouldn’t it make more sense to just acknowledge that anyone theoretically has their price, but unless and until such price is offered, nothing’s going to happen?
“This release includes forward-looking statements, and should not be construed as to (blah blah blah)…”
Translation: Here’s a bunch of stuff we have to say because the SEC makes us.
This is for you investor relations types. Every time you talk about how you think the company might do in the future, you have to put in all these disclaimers so no one will be able to accuse you of guaranteeing success. As if you could.
The reason I didn’t write out the entire disclaimer is that I’ve never read one from start to finish. The reason I haven’t is that no one in the history of the world has ever read one of these disclaimers from start to finish. Even the lawyer who drafted the original template was probably just doing a stream-of-consciousness exercise and, if you asked him now, he would say, “You mean you’re actually using that mumbo jumbo? Gosh, I love my job.”
Finally, there’s my favorite
“We’re confident this new direction will result in satisfactory outcomes for us, our customers and our employees.”
Translation: Please let this idea be the one that works! Another year like last year and we’ll be out of business!
