Like an ocean cruise except there’s no boat, no water and you don’t actually go anywhere

One of my pet peeves is when sales or marketing type people fall into a syndrome that I call “Why use one word when you can use ten?”

It seems to be a pretty rampant tendency to ignore the fact that a prospect is not likely to evaluate a product based on the cleverness of the slogan or sales verbiage.  In fact, a long, cutesy explanation of something can often miss the target because it doesn’t simply let your audience know what it is your product does.  It can even appear somewhat deceptive.

The best example of this that I’ve ever seen is a scene from one of favorite movies of all time – The Muppets Take Manhattan. As they say on the  talk shows “let me set up the clip for you.”

Kermit and the gang (Fozzie, Piggy, et al.) have come to the big city to produce their musical “Together Again”. in the course of events, our favorite frog is hit by a car and taken to a hospital.  He’s not seriously injured other than the fact that he now has amnesia. The hospital discharges, gives him a suit of clothes and sends him on his way.  Even though he doesn’t know who he is, he knows he must find a job.  We find him here entering an office that he thinks an employment agency.