Center of excellence. Service-oriented. Best-practice. Market-leader. Best of breed.
Do you know anyone who actually talks like that? Me neither.
Ironically, you’ll find these lines popping up from brands that say they want to be “more human” in their communication.
Sure, they’ll leave it out at first. But then it’s like OCD. They just can’t help themselves. They see a place for one and they add it. Then they add another…and another…and soon the copy looks nothing like it was intended and reads like a just another brochure.
Then they sit and wonder why no-one pays any attention to them…
Lines like “At the end of the day” are tacky. Tell your clients. Tell your copywriter. Leave them out.
The Batrachian Chronicles 
It’s because clients believe marketing is ego driven — from our years of watching used car commercials — “my family’s business is the best and most trustworthy.” We haven’t acted as counselors helping clients to uncover their story, or determine why their story is worth telling. It comes, I believe, from still being largely a sales culture looking for the next sale at the end of the day rather than the best positioning at the end of the calendar year or decade.
Twitter: @marketingplaza
Blog: http://www.themarketingplaza.com
Hi Rhona
Agreed. And on top of that once you’ve uncovered their story, you need to show them how to tell it in a way that is relevant to their clients – and not in a voice that is (as you say) “ego-driven”.
Thanks for the comment and thanks for stopping by.
Ciao
[A]
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What I have noticed is that in each industry, there are catch phrases which all the agencies use. I started to pick them up myself when I entered the web industry and quickly stopped myself from using them, as clients usually have NO idea what they mean anyway.
Yeah. It’s kinda hard when you’re surrounded by it all day, for 8 hour stretches. The jargon-creep is imperceptible like grass growing. One minute there’s nothing happening, come back six days later and there’s a forest. On a tenuously-linked note, apparently designers suffer from wanting to Command + Z in real life…