Posted April 29, 2007

Buzzwords seem to come and go. Sometimes, there’s little choice -- you have to use them. In limited doses, I suppose they can communicate well enough to specialized audiences. But when overused, all you get is a long string of dull nothingness.

Consider this passage I ran across:

At [Company], we are transforming the challenges of our industry into opportunities for success. Our pragmatic approach of building critical mass, making data-driven decisions and integrating diverse areas of science, coupled with our commitment to execution makes it possible to combine remarkable productivity with an unwavering commitment to quality. We believe that our unique strategy allows us to increase our chances for success and ensures a steady stream of high-quality compounds to sustain our growth. We are charting an ambitious path toward our goal of making a positive impact on the lives of patients with cancer because we believe there is A Better Way to Better Medicine.

Admittedly, I don’t really know exactly what this company does, but looking this copy over, I think the main message has something to do with combining science, productivity, and a data-driven approach to cancer therapies. So something like this might work a lot better:

At [Company], we transform challenges into new opportunities. By combining a pragmatic data-driven approach with an unwavering commitment to quality, we integrate diverse scientific disciplines to provide a remarkably productive and steady stream of innovative cancer therapies. Our goals are ambitious, but our mission is clear: to make a positive impact on patient’s lives through A Better Way to Better Medicine.

Yes, I did leave some of those buzzwords in. If this were my own client, I’d have the luxury of researching some additional support points to try and stamp them all out. However, I had to settle for removing some of the most tedious phrases, such as "critical mass," "unique strategy," and "sustain our growth." They don’t seem add that much to the passage.

I was also able to cut back on the copy by about 40%. I concede that I may have cut too much, but I still think the main message rings through loud and clear – with a whole lot less buzz.