The profit warning of a high street carpet retailer may seem like an unlikely source for a media training blog.
But when Carpetright announced yesterday (24/10) that profits were heading to the floor (I’m here all week) after being hit by ‘volatile’ trading conditions, it included a phrase so full of boardroom jargon that it was impossible to know what it was actually trying to say.
Discussing some weaknesses away from its core business of floor coverings, it reported that bed sales were ‘impacted in the period by an acceleration of re-ranging activity to improve the proposition’.
I’ve now read this phrase several times and I’m still not sure what it means.
And I’m not alone.
As if to highlight the danger of using impenetrable jargon in statements and media interviews, the Financial Times felt compelled to take the unusual step of trying to translate the phrase for its readers.
In its report on the story it said: “We’ll assume that means it got some new beds because the old ones were not selling, but we can’t be sure.”
Social media users were equally bemused and gave some less than flattering interpretations of what the company was actually trying to say.
Carpetright says its bed sales were "impacted in the period by an acceleration of re-ranging activity to improve the proposition" pic.twitter.com/TOj9xBiAQ0
— Katie Martin (@katie_martin_fx) October 24, 2017
Does that mean: we got rid of the crap no one would buy and replaced it with some more crap?
— Redlight (@rob_mcivor) October 24, 2017
You know, I’m not entirely sure what that is supposed to mean. But I can say, with near certainty, that it doesn’t mean what they intended.🤔
— Jeremy Chappell (@Jezzer_UK) October 24, 2017
Ahh yes, WTF are they talking about.
— H20_2011 (@H20_2011) October 24, 2017
Perhaps Carpetright felt compelled to use more formal language in a profit warning statement. But there is a big difference between formal words and meaningless jargon.
If journalists and social media users – potential customers – are reduced to guessing what a business is trying to communicate then the organisation’s credibility is damaged.
And the fact that its choice of language bears no resemblance to how its customers speak suggests it may be out of touch.
The Financial Times’ translation of the statement is probably correct, but by producing such a vague message which could mean different things to different people, Carpetright left itself wide open to misinterpretation.
The other main risk with sentences like this one is that most journalists will regard them as being simply unusable. In this case it seems the Financial Times only used it to highlight its ridiculousness.
If the sentence had been used in a media interview the audience would have at best been left bemused, and more likely would have zoned-out or switched off altogether.
You have to wonder how such a meaningless message made it into the final draft of the statement, but Carpetright is not alone in using unnecessarily complex language.
My mind still boggles at the language used by Paddy Power and its proposed merger with Betfair back in 2015.
Chairman Gary McGann was quoted as saying at the time: “The merger of Paddy Power and Betfair will create a company of world-class capability and people who deliver substantial up-front synergies and a platform for very exciting business expansion.”
Two years on and I’m still not sure what ‘up-front synergies’ are and I’ve certainly not encountered them in any interactions I may or may not have had with the bookmaker’s services.
On our media training courses we tell delegates that the best way to remove this jargon is to forget about how you would tell the story to a colleague and think about how you would describe it to a family member or friend who is not connected to your industry – it’s unlikely that Carpetright would talk about ‘an acceleration of re-ranging activity’ in that context.
Ideally you want to keep the language simple enough for a 10-year-old to understand.
And we are not alone in our no nonsense approach to language. A recent study by Oregan State and Texas Universities warned that jargon causes customers to switch off and suggested that ‘gobbledygook’ should be replaced by ‘genuine human warmth’. We couldn’t put it better ourselves.
You can read more about the words and phrases to avoid when talking to the media in one of our earlier blogs.
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