Excessive Use of Verbs and Sparkles

Ladies and gentleman, here at The Nearby Future, we would love nothing more than to run rampant with glitter and turn our homepage into a tinsel-y mess of fantastically sparkling pictures that resembles a Christmas tree decorated by a four year old.

But we don’t.

We consider glitter on a homepage a sign of weakness.

Or desperation.

But what glitter combined with unnecessary adjectives and verbs really means is a desperate company doing anything to sell, sell, sell.

(I’m not just calling out Conair here. Read the article about my theory that adjectives = failure and verbs = desperation HERE)

Let me begin by saying that I love Conair. I use (and lose) bucket loads of their bobby pins on a weekly basis. (Probably not that good for the environment, but I digress.)

All right, enough disclaimer, time for the smack down:

• Note the circled, blue sparkles. Point made.
• See everything that is highlighted? In the yellow? Those are the unnecessary words that burn my inner editor whenever I see companies drown us in meaningless phrases such as “Tourmaline Ceramic Ionic technology”. What does that even mean to us consumers? Sure, it’s some fancy lingo, but it’s pointless and out of place on this web page.
• Ok, ok, I was just pointing out the cliche business talk in purple. It’s so common in today’s marketplace that I don’t have much to complain about there, it just sounds cheesy. So cheesy, in fact, it makes one lactose intolerant at the mere sight of such overused words. “You decide. You Style.” “Dry, straighten and shine in one simple step.” Just reading those makes you think of an overenthusiastic car salesman, doesn’t it?
• Why can’t people just say “blowdryer”?
• That picture with the blue star next to it looks like something used everyday… in the military procedures, that is.
• That last product doesn’t even make logical sense.

You’re probably sitting there, wondering why I’m going over this page with you. (Well if you haven’t read my article about verbs, adjectives and the well being of companies, you’re probably a little more than lost. You’re so lost you could be stranded in the middle of some distant planet and think you’re still on Earth for all I know.)

Companies have stopped sugarcoating their products. They’re drenching them in high fructose corn syrup. Everything is coming out with more adjectives, verbs, and designs. Each clunky new hairdryer (or Infiniti Ionic Hair Styler, for that matter) is pushing the limits of customer design.

In short, advertising is crafty and companies will use every method to sell you their products. Just remember this, and you’ll save yourself a lot of money.

-Rika