Posted on by Larry Litwin

One word appeared in press releases 776 times—in a 24-hour period

Taken from: Ragan’s “PR Daily” By Michael Sebastian | Posted: March 23, 2011

If you have time…and want the full article — plus comments: http://www.prdaily.com/Main/Articles/7660.aspx

 

To comment: larry@larrylitwin.com

I hope you’re sitting down. 

Last month, PR strategist Adam Sherk took 25 of the most overused buzzwords in marketing and PR—he compiled a list of the top 100 in June—and ran them through PRFilter, a website from RealWire that aggregates press releases.

The results: “Solution” led the pack with 243 appearances.

Shortly after he published the post, PRFilter set the record straight: “Solution” did not appear in press releases 243 times; it appeared 622 times—and it was the second most common buzzword.

The most common word is “leading,” which showed its face 776 times—in one 24-hour stretch.

Here’s the full list—compliments of Adam Sherk and PRFilter:

1. leading (776)
2. solution (622)
3. best (473)
4. innovate / innovative / innovator (452)
5. leader (410)
6. top (370)
7. unique (282)
8. great (245)
9. extensive (215)
10. leading provider (153)
11. exclusive (143)
12. premier (136)
13. flexible (119)
14. award winning / winner (106)
15. dynamic (95)
16. fastest (70)
17. smart (69)
18. state of the art (65)
19. cutting edge (54)
20. biggest (54)
21. easy to use (51)
22. largest (34)
23. real time (8)

UPDATE: As RealWire CEO Adam Parker noted in the comments, there are 23 (instead of 25) buzzwords because PRFilter treats some words (innovate, innovator, innovative) as single words.

A few comments…including one from that Litwin guy:

 

Comments (27)

donmorberg · 2 days ago

Most interesting. Not sure how 25 of 23 words were run through PRFilter, but nonetheless it’s interesting. Where did synergy go?
dm
Hi Don 

The difference in number is because Adam had innovate, innovator and innovation as separate words on his list but in actual fact PRFilter treats them all the same within its relevance processes as it sees them as all relating to innovation – hence why they are grouped together above.

Synergy wasn’t on Adam’s original list but having looked at our data I can confirm it appeared 19 times on the day in question.

Thanks for your interest.
Adam Parker, Chief exec, RealWire

 

Larry Litwin
Don’t kn ock synergy. I’ve been using it effectively in strategic sommunication for 25 years. (Even wrote a book about it.) When your output achieves your planned outcome and you achieve your goal by assuring the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, you have achieved synergy and more. Do not knock synergy. Each of us functions daily thanks to the unique physiological makeup of our bodies.

Robert Cole

Adam,

 

Apologies for the comment being longer than the post – bad habit of mine…

Love the analysis, but I am not really surprised. Fundamentally, what you are seeing is what I have frequently called “Synonym Syndrome” or “Thesaurus Theory” in action.

In essence, in an effort to differentiate their product and break through the clutter, marketers are using seven basic pillars to justify product superiority or noteworthiness:

– Bigger
– Faster
– Simpler
– Smarter
– Different
– Popular

To sum up, they all are actually applying one unifying construct as an umbrella,

– Better

Some concepts, like Bigger, Faster, Simpler, Smarter are product related and traditionally dominated the landscape in an effort to describe HOW a product is better.

The other two, Different & Popular are a bit more socially oriented, referencing aspects that relate to other competitive products or an earlier version. These tend to address the WHY a product deserves attention.

Finally, if the product features/benefits & differentiation present a challenge, one can always fall back on those good ‘ole non-specific superlatives like Better. Does it really matter who gave you that award (thanks Mom) as long as you are now award-winning? Didn’t think so.

What I find most interesting is how these specific terms stack up when aggregated into groupings of similar terms –

Popular:1339
1. leading (776)
5. leader (410)
10. leading provider (153)

Better:1330
3. best (473)
6. top (370)
8. great (245)
12. premier (136)
14. award winning / winner (106)

Simpler:887
2. solution (622)
13. flexible (119)
21. easy to use (51)
15. dynamic (95)

Different:425
7. unique (282)
11. exclusive (143)

Bigger:303
9. extensive (215)
20. biggest (54)
22. largest (34)

Smarter:188
4. innovate / innovative / innovator (452)
17. smart (69)
18. state of the art (65)
19. cutting edge (54)

Faster:78
16. fastest (70)
23. real time (8)

Now that we live in more complex times where branding often trumps product feature sets, popularity and simplicity has apparently become the dominant theme, with the impact of social media perhaps tilting the scales, as you note, from Solution (Simpler) to Leading (Popular) within the last year.

Of course, it could be worse. We can be thankful that we are not suffering the product marketing malaise of the 1960’s & ’70’s when the generic and typically unsubstantiated “New & Improved” were undoubtedly the most popular terms.

Great stuff – would love to see you semantically categorize the concepts as the context is what really makes the usage of these terms most intriguing.