Top Gobbledygook phrases used in 2008 and how to avoid them

Boston, MA - April 8, 2009 - David Meerman Scott is pleased to announce a partnership with Dow Jones and HubSpot to leverage and focus on innovative solutions for new and improved, next generation, cost effective, world class, high performance, value added outcomes.

Does the sentence above suck or what??

That's how so many PR people write — using gobbledygook-laden phrases that are so overused to have become meaningless.

I have just completed an analysis of all 711,123 press releases distributed by North American companies in 2008 through Business Wire, Marketwire, GlobeNewswire, and PR Newswire. The project looked at 325 gobbledygook phrases from a variety of sources, with the detailed analysis on the number of uses for each phrase done using Dow Jones Insight.

So how do you avoid using gobbledygook?

Easy! Write using the words and phrases your buyers use. You can also run your press releases, web site text, brochure copy, resume or any other document through the brand new Gobbledygook Grader from HubSpot. The Gobbledygook Grader (released today) will give you a score based on how many over-used gobbledygook phrases you use and suggest ways to improve.

Here are the top 25 gobbledygook phrases used in press releases sent in North America 2008.

Gobbledygook terms were drawn from these sources:

- Informal survey of my journalist friends in order to create The Gobbledygook Manifesto, first published in 2007.

- Suggestions within comments on the Gobbledygook Manifesto blog post.

- Seth Godin's Encyclopedia of Business Clichés.

- This Paperclip is a Solution: A survey of general business and trade publication editors in September, 2006 by Dave Schmidt, VP, Public Relations Services at Smith-Winchester, Inc.

- The book Death Sentences: How Cliches, Weasel Words and Management-Speak Are Strangling Public Language by Don Watson

Resources:

- Take a look at the results for all 325 gobbledygook phrases

- Analyze your content using the HubSpot Gobbledygook Grader

- Read my original Gobbledygook Manifesto published in 2007

- Learn more about Dow Jones Insight, which I used for this analysis.

Disclosures: I am on the board of advisors of HubSpot and I provide coaching services to Dow Jones Enterprise Media Group.

Comments

[Shaun Dakin]

David,

Great idea!

I'm pleased to see that you are innovating such a unique scalable high performance flexible web 2.0 new media web tool.

Shaun Dakin
CEO
StopPoliticalCalls.org
@EndTheRobocalls
@IsCool

[Tim Parker]

Great to see the update - very relieved that robust has dropped 10 places, it had gotten very tedious.

My take away, I am going to start using 130 percent from now on.

A request to Hubspot, could you adapt your grader to accept urls? Just to make it a little easier for those of us too lazy to copy and paste.

Thanks.

[Stephen Coady]

I'm appalled at the garbage people write in press releases! Admittedly, although I try really hard to write plainly, it's hard not to slip in the occasional business-speak type of word on occasion, even though I work at a moving company and not a "world class enterprise."

[Eugenie Verney]

Fine work, David!

Pleased to see that "solutions" has slipped down somewhat, but I note that "going forward" still has a top 50 place. I cannot begin to express how much I loathe that vacuous phrase...

http://eugenieverney.typepad.com/

[Steve Johnson]

You do a real service to the tech community when you update this survey annually. We all see these horrid words but it's nice to be able to say "it's not me; David says so and the stats support him."

You've done a great job of leveraging synergy with leading providers... oh wait, I'm going it again.

[Amelia Search engine optimisation]

What a great idea I can't wait to try it out! I'm off to read your manifesto now!

[Jari Juslén]

I tried and got a grade of 0/100 with the following ;-(

"We are pleased to introduce our new and improved next generation, easy to use solution aimed at providing value added services to all leading providers. This unique, flexible solution is focused on creating increased partnership commitment and world class outcomes in terms of metrics."

This is really cruel..our PR is destroyed!

Serious: this is really good, many thanks, I admire your passion on this subject!

[David Meerman Scott]

Jari - that is a true prize winning piece of gobbledygook.

[Sarah Mitchell]

Thanks for the reminder, David, that it's easy to get complacent. Thankfully, it's just not that difficult to write better copy. I'm making a pledge to myself that I'll pass everything I write over the next 7 days through the gobbledygook grader.

I'm going through a website rewrite now and I know there's at least one "robust" mention on my own site.

[Tom]

Hubspot and webinknow working together, that a great combination. Excellent work to the both you. Been a fan of grader since it was just website grader and webinknow since the new rules.

[Erika]

I was just thinking about this very subject yesterday. There is nothing worse than hearing these copy-cat words in a press release. In fact it's an automatic turn off and causes me to loose interest immediately.

[Linda VandeVrede]

Better yet, use other PR tactics to build relationships than press releases. Too many PR people rely on this ancient convention, when it's clear that press releases are not a PR strategy. I wrote a book on this topic for clients to avoid having to create the gobbledygook copy in the first place :)

[David]

I just sent out some press releases yesterday and found this site today. My releases scored really low. Great tool - now I have some re-writting to do!

[JustinSMV]

I love the research and thought process behind this because its so simple and so true. I hope that many PR companies catch on to this and use these tools to improve their articles :-)

[Laurie Dunlop]

I was thrilled to see the word "leveraged" so high on the list. If I hear that word on one more presentation or meeting this year I will scream!!!!

[Vince Giorgi]

Don't look now, David, but corporate gobbledygook might be morphing into a virulent strain of mumbo jumbo, at least when it comes marketing job descriptions. As if the career weren't challenging enough? Check out this post about a recent position description for a Segment Marketing Manager at a Fortune 500 company.

[Tony Eldridge]

Great post! I linked to it in my Marketing Tips Around the Net on my blog today.

Tony

[Jason Karpf]

I'm heartbroken that my all-time favorite "robust" is out of the top ten. And what about "seamless"? At least "new and improved," which I think Marconi used in his first broadcast, is hanging tough.

A wise gentleman named David Meerman Scott told us to “think like a publisher.” So, write press releases that are informative and can be taken seriously.

[Sean Dougherty]

Bravo!

[Web Stores and More]

Hmmm... just ran a recent newsletter through the grader which found no Gobbledygook terms but awarded me a score of only 51. What other factors are considered? Thanks

[David Meerman Scott]

@Web Stores - please ask the people at HubSpot for info on specifics of the Grader. Thanks

[John Zajaros]

Great article! I had never heard of the term "gobbledygook" used in this fashion. I will rethink my use of various words and phrases as a result of this article. It's funny how we adopt words and adapt our lexicon to the times. This is a very useful slant on things. Thanks and well done!

Professor John P. J. Zajaros, Sr.

[Career Search]

Nice blog.Hmmm... just ran a recent newsletter through the grader which found no Gobbledygook terms but awarded me a score of only 51.

[RickA99]

What about "exceed expectations"? I can't believe that is not near the top.

[lisa]

Great to have found you! Very pleased to see the update. I also have found a lot of interesting information here -
http://www.picktorrent.com
Have fun!