On Sept 6, Yahoo! announced that they were reorganizing their leadership. The board of directors dismissed Carol Bartz as CEO, and promoted Timothy Morse as interim chief executive officer. They are currently looking for someone to permanently fill the position.

Roy Bostock, chairman of the Yahoo! board, said in the press release; “The Board sees enormous growth opportunities on which Yahoo! can capitalize, and our primary objective is to leverage the Company’s leadership and current business assets and platforms to execute against these opportunities.”

I don’t know about you, but I had to carefully read this one sentence before I understood what Bostock was saying. In simple terms he is trying to say, they are excited for a change in leadership and hope Yahoo! can take advantage of this opportunity to improve.

So why is it when companies have an opportunity to make an announcement, which will be read by millions, they choose to make the press release incredibly difficult to read? For example, Bostock goes on to say, “We have talented teams and tremendous resources behind them and intend to return the Company to a path of robust growth and industry-leading innovation. We are committed to exploring and evaluating possibilities and opportunities that will put Yahoo! on a trajectory for growth and innovation and deliver value to shareholders.”

Words like innovation, talented, industry-leading and other such phrases are immediate turnoffs to readers because they are overused by marketers. Consumers no longer want to hear these general statements of praise. Instead, they want to know how this is going to solve their problems and help them in their lives. In addition, these general terms don’t instill a sense of warmth or ease. In fact, they portray deceit and trickery.

Just as interruption marketing is slowly dying, fluffy marketing language should always be cut. With your content marketing strategy, you should take every chance to create conversations in which your consumers will want to participate. Yahoo! had the opportunity to set a new tone but missed out on the opportunity.

About the author

James Rognon

James comes equipped with a bachelor’s degree in business administration and marketing with an emphasis in visual communication from BYU-Idaho. James has managed several small businesses, and has the ability to see the larger picture in every project for our clients. When he isn’t conceptualizing campaigns, James is cooking, shooting photography, playing soccer, hitting the slopes, or playing with his kids.