Weaseling out on its way out

Great post from Seth Godin today on “Weasel Words.” It’s harder now for marketers to make a powerful promise and then instantly hedge that promise. Seth uses a number of examples, such as “we guarantee a member of senior management will call you back as soon as possible” to illustrate how marketers make a strong claim and then tie it to a murky modifier, making objective measurement of the claim nearly impossible. Weaselesque.

This is one of the great things about the Internet’s ability to level the communication playing field between customers and marketers. If companies B.S. customers—even a little bit—customers can let lots of people know through email and blogs. And “word of B.S.” spreads fast.