Low cost? Great! Flexible? Great! But what exactly are you advertising?

Wow, thanks! I’ve had that jar containing a homogeneous mixture of two or more substances knocking around on my desk since the summer and I’ve been meaning to leverage its capabilities for ages.

Genius! Take your “solutions” criminality to the next level – incorporate the word into a hideous pun that makes what you’re selling sound wholly uninviting. At least it might distract your readers from your apostrophe sins and that bizarre “dot” conceit you’ve become so fond of.

For more on why you shouldn’t use the word “solutions”, see my guest post on Brad Shorr’s Word Sell blog.

Look at that gorgeous girl above – isn’t that a body that screams POWER!!

What’s that? You’re over 55? Oh, I’m sorry, we’ve got a different leaflet for you. Here, take this one:

Yes, yes, I know most women under the age of 30 would kill for Helen Mirren’s abs, but this leaflet’s much more suited to someone open quotes young at heart close quotes.

We really want you to know that we’re prepared to embrace you into our community. Especially someone as ladylike/gentlemanly as you.

Look, we’ve even gone so far as to crack open the big friendly hand-writing font from our folder marked “patronising community engagement ideas”.

See that old girl on the front – it changed her life (what little she’s got left of it, of course).

Not convinced? Read on:

Social interaction – imagine that! After all, being an unfit old crone really chips away at your confidence, doesn’t it? Especially when all your friends have died!

There’s more! In fact, it deserves another friendly font and lots of exclamation marks!!!

Everything all right, dear? I SAID, EVERYTHING ALL RIGHT DEAR?

WHAT’S THAT? HELEN MIRREN, YOU SAY? YES, SHE’S A NICE YOUNG LADY, ISN’T SHE?

I’ve cut and pasted it exactly as it appeared, though for your reading pleasure, I’ve annotated the most egregious bits.

About the Opportunity:
********** urgently require an associate(s) to deliver our ******* project as below. Once shortlisted you will be asked to provide an appropriate quote.

Goods/works/services we need to buy

AIMS OF THE PROJECT

The project will be delivering against the following activities:
******** is a brand new project where the Focus is on specialist environmental supportand and will bridge the gap between mainstream Business London Support programme and instrumental innovation programmes, [Instrumental innovation - yay, my favourite kind of innovation!] especially those emerging through the London Development Agency (LDA

[Now we've got off to a bad start here because random capitalisation, sloppy punctuation and a disregard for where words begin and end count as environmental pollution in my book.]

TARGET GROUPS

Start up, Micro – Small businesses (approx 50 employees)

OVERVIEW

The project will have a special focus on SMEs in Food, Creative, Technology and Environmental sectors.
The project builds upon existing services provided.[But we won't tell you what those services are because that would make it too easy.] Supporting the development of business-led networks/networking to encourage collaboration and cross-sector innovation. [Still lovin' all this innovation - especially now I know it's "cross-sector innovation"]For Start up, Micro – Small businesses to work towards a sustainable greener business.SME must be over 12mths trading
Program is a process of business development with an environmental sustainable innovative approach. [Oh, I get it, for this bit you just wrote a load of buzzwords on separate pieces of paper, put them in a bag, shook it up and wrote them down in the order they came out. Nice work! Great that you got "innovative" in there, too - this project wasn't sounding innovative enough to me before now.]

size / scale of our requirements

DELIVERY of OUTPUTS

51 – Provision of a minimum level of assistance of at least two days. [Two days' work between now and summer 2011? Me likey the sound of that? Or is that two days x 51? I'm confused. Either way, though, I like the whole idea of providing a minimum level of assistance.]
5 – A first involvement between at least one SME and one knowledge base organisation, achieving the minimum level of assistance. [Hang on, I won't even be expected to "provide" a minimum level of assistance - merely "achieve" it? Liking the fact that your expectations are so low. That might come in handy as I've no idea what a "knowledge base organisation" is. Or, for that matter, a "first involvement".]
20 – SMEs disseminating and facilitating knowledge transfer, providing achieving the minimum level of assistance. [Oh, I get it, now you're equivocating on me about the whole "minimum level of assistance" thing. C'mon, what's it to be? Because I'm really not sure what "disseminating and facilitating knowledge transfer" involves either, and wouldn't like to commit to anything beyond my skill-set (as you would surely call it)]
7 – SMEs referred directly to environmental business support partners to support environmental improvements.
5 – SMES actually undertaking environmental management opportunities.
9 – Jobs Created.
5 – Innovation related Jobs Created. [Hey, I want one of these Innovation related Jobs - they sound much cooler than what I'm doing now.]
1 – Number of Innovation Related projects [Ditto!]
17 – Jobs Safeguarded
1 – Number of businesses integrating new products/services
13 – Businesses with improved performance

We require quality standards / essential requirements as follows

EXPERIENCE / ESSENTIAL

• Must be SFEDI accredited Business Advisor
• Must be qualified to access / deliver Environmental advise. [But poor spelling we can live with.]
• Must can demonstrate track record of similar type delivery. [Must or can - which is it to be? Because, you know, we're all a bit creative with our CVs, aren't we? And do I get to choose what type of type I deliver? I like serif types best.]
• Must be able to meet tight deadlines
• Must be very proactive
• Must have access / contacts already within North London Environmental sector
• Must have access / deliver Environmental workshops in:
o Business Environmental Planning
o Financial Planning
o Innovative Environmental presentation [You've reverted to that bag with the bits of paper in it again, haven't you? Good to know "innovative" is still in there though.]
o Knowledge base transfer and others [Can I get away with just accessing/delivering the "others" bit of this, please? Because, you know, as we've already established, I'm a bit lacking in the whole "knowledge base transfer" area.]

Start: ASAP
Completion Date: Summer 2011

Colleague. What does the word mean to you? Not ten years ago, but now.

To me the answer is easy. It means a supermarket shelf stacker, call centre worker or a downtrodden white collar junior at a large unwieldy organisation like a bank or phone company. Shame really, given what the word used to mean.

In fact I think it has probably become the most abusive term possible for addressing your staff. Because the deceit is so flipping see through. (Sorry, am I meant to say transparent?)

How would these workers refer to themselves, if asked? Staff, probably. Employees, maybe. Staff sounds fairly professional and employee sounds functional enough – we’re employed by an employer, we understand the relationship. Workers is fair enough as well, for that’s what we are.

But in the Human Resources world (which solar system is that in, I wonder?) these decent, acceptable descriptions are seen as disparaging. Not, I venture, as disparaging as most normal people find the expression human resources. But then the people who work in this field don’t really seem to listen to or understand the views of normal humans.

As copywriters, we have to fight against this nonsense. Please do not insult people with the word colleagues. We should make it our job to tell the HR fools where to get off. Sorry, are we allowed to say job, I can’t remember?

Richard Owsley has a business degree and postgraduate degree in marketing and has been working full-time as a copywriter and editor for over 15 years. He lives in Bristol and runs Writers, a copywriting company with offices in the UK, France and Australia.

richard@writers.uk.net