Corporate Buzzspeak

This is a further response to today’s daily writing prompt. I am being sarcastic here. You can laugh along with me. You can flip the finger at the buzzspeak mentality with me. If you want, you can even be offended by this. It’s all good. Here we go…

I asked Google Bard to, “explain why the term brand is a meaningless corporate buzzword.” Here is Bard’s response:

The term “brand” is often used as a corporate buzzword without any real meaning. It is often thrown around in marketing and advertising materials, but it is rarely defined or explained in a clear and concise way.

One reason for this is that the concept of “brand” is complex and multifaceted. It can refer to a wide range of things, including a company’s name, logo, products, services, reputation, and even its culture.

Another reason is that the term “brand” has been overused and misused in recent years. It is now applied to everything from products and services to people and places. This has led to a certain amount of confusion and cynicism about the term.

Here are some specific reasons why the term “brand” is often a meaningless corporate buzzword:

  • It is often used in a vague and unsubstantiated way. For example, a company might claim that its brand is “innovative” or “customer-centric,” but it may not provide any specific evidence to support these claims.
  • It is often used to sell products or services that are not actually that different from the competition. For example, two different brands of toothpaste might both claim to be the “best for your teeth,” but there may be little real difference between them.
  • It is often used to create a sense of artificial exclusivity or superiority. For example, a luxury brand might claim that its products are “only for the best” or that they are “the epitome of style.”

In short, the term “brand” is often used as a marketing gimmick rather than a meaningful way to differentiate a company from its competitors.

Here are some examples of how the term “brand” is often used as a meaningless corporate buzzword:

  • “Our new product is designed to help you create a more authentic brand.”
  • “We are committed to building a strong brand that resonates with our customers.”
  • “Our brand is all about innovation and creativity.”
  • “We want to be the world’s leading brand in our industry.”

These statements are all vague and unsubstantiated. They do not provide any specific information about what the company’s brand actually is or what makes it different from the competition.

To be truly meaningful, the term “brand” should be used to describe a company’s unique value proposition and the way that it differentiates itself from its competitors. It should also be backed up by specific examples and evidence.

https://bard.google.com

I Hate That Term!

Daily writing prompt
What brands do you associate with?

I friggin’ HATE the term “brand”. Talk about your arrogant asshole corporate buzzword speak. We’re not a soulless corporation out to put profit over the wellbeing of the people, we’re a brand. Oooooh. No, screw you, jerk-wads, you’re a friggin’ company and no you are not people and no you do not deserve to have the freakin’ vote!

UGH! I HATE THIS TERM!

To answer the corporate buzzword bullshit question though…

Gibson guitars, specifically Gibson USA. I can’t afford anything from the custom shop. I own four of them (a Les Paul Custom, a Les Paul Standard, an ES-335 Pro, and an SG Standard) and am constantly drooling over the idea of owning more (a Firebird, a Les Paul Junior, and a Les Paul Standard with P90’s).

Apple. I’m quite the fanboy as I type this on my MacBook Pro while wearing an Apple Watch and looking at my iPhone 14 Pro Max sitting on the desk next to me, and knowing that I have an iPad sitting on a charger in the next room, and a pair of AirPod Pro Max next to it, and lamenting that my little AirPods fell out of my pocket at the airport the other day.

Still… I absolutely loathe the term brand. Fuck that noise.

I Could Do More

Daily writing prompt
What could you do more of?

What could I do more of? I feel like I am lacking in so many areas of life. Nothing so much as to be a problem, but many things where I just want to be doing better than I am.

  • Helping/supporting/being there for my wife. I do some, but not nearly enough. Not even close.
  • Helping/supporting/being there for my step kids. Again, I do what I can but they are so far away from us now it’s very difficult. Any time there is the slightest hiccup in their lives I just want to drop everything and go running and I just can’t do it when they are a couple of hundred miles away.
  • Helping/supporting/being there for my extended family. This mostly includes my father, but also in a big way it includes my niece and my three nephews. I never feel like I am there for any of them. I chip in for my father when I can, but not nearly enough, and as for the four kids, am I the worst, most useless uncle on Earth? I think so. I am doing an abysmal job at being an uncle.
  • Helping/supporting/being there for my staff at work. I think I am doing an okay job as a supervisor, but I could be doing so much more.

Those are the big ones. There are a slew of other areas where I could be doing more that fall under personal, mental well being kind of things. More music, more photography, more travel, more exploration, more community stuff. Those sorts of things. They are clearly secondary to family and work though.

So I guess my answers for today’s daily writing prompt are pretty much the same as most of my prompt answers. Family, work, personal things. I feel like a bit of a broken record, but they are the most important things in my life, you know?

Does This Count as Advice?

Daily writing prompt
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?

The best advice I’ve ever received… I’m not sure. Does it count as advice if it was something you were 100% going to do anyway?

Uncle Johnny was my father’s brother and my godfather. While the godfather part is technically meaningless to an atheist, it still has meaning from a family perspective. He was an alcoholic who lived a very hard life before getting sober and straightening himself out. He was an inspiration, and very likely the reason I have never really touched alcohol. He was a type two diabetic in his later years and his health went down the crapper in a major way at the end. He died in a horrible yet thankfully quick fashion and I miss him a lot.

When I first started dating Jen back in 2007 his diabetes was out of control and it cost him his lower leg. He was in and out of the hospital and various rehab and half way houses as he needed more and more surgeries and more and more physical therapy to deal with his new reality. Jen used to go with me to visit him.

In the short time that Uncle Johnny knew Jen, he was really taken with her. He was a huge fan of hers, and of our relationship. Sadly he never met the kids. Bellana was six and Harry was four and Jen and the kids’ father had an arrangement that said new relationships should last for six months before the kids become involved. We were still under that six month mark when this particular conversation happened.

Johnny was in a bed in a rehab place. I think Jen was with me for this particular visit but she was out of the room for some reason. He asked about the kids and I told him I still had not been introduced to them but the big day was coming soon. The advice he gave me was simple and while it is clearly the best advice I can remember receiving, I was absolutely going to do it anyway so does it still count? I don’t know. I don’t recall the exact words but the gist of it was, you make sure you do right by those kids, Rob.

By the time he said that to me it was already becoming a primary life goal. Still, I hope I’ve made my uncle proud.


On a lighter note, there was another, earlier piece of sage advice that Uncle Johnny gave me. I was a teenager at the time. He told me, again paraphrasing because I don’t recall the exact words, put off shaving as long as you can because once you start you can never stop. I wanted to follow that advice, but I looked really awful with a spotty, patchy beard and I just had to shave off what little there was as soon as it became visible. Here we are almost 40 years later and I still look terrible with facial hair. He was right though. As soon as I started shaving it became a regularly scheduled pain in the ass.

Thanks for the advice, Uncle Johnny.