Of Zombies and Schmawsuits

Posted by Matt Purdue, Senior Analyst, Peppercom.

Zombies. It’s one of my favorite words in the English language. Tolkein can have his cellar door. I’ll take zombies every time. The word zombie comes to us from Caribbean French and English Creole via Kimbundu, one of the most popular languages in southwestern African. In Kimbundu, zumbi can be loosely translated as ghost or spirit; and more spirit is what financial communicators need immediately.

Zombie arose last week on the Wall Street Journal’s Deal Journal blog in a piece written by Heidi Moore. Moore was describing the fate of Wachovia in the 23 months since it acquired mortgage lender Golden West. Wachovia CEO Ken Thompson, Moore wrote, called it a “transformative deal.” Tee it up for Moore: “Unfortunately, Golden West did help transform Wachovia—right into one of the mortgage-lending zombies now roaming the financial landscape.”

One day earlier, Moore unearthed another grabber in her piece on the news that a Bain Capital affiliate might be buying some of Deutsche Bank’s debt while Bain and DB are engaged in a legal tussle over the Clear Channel buyout. Her lede: “Lawsuit, schmawsuit.”

Moore’s turns of phrase represent a dying art in financial writing. Clever metaphors and colorful language can draw readers into even the most esoteric topics. That’s a lesson almost completely ignored by public relations professionals. Crafting articles that are not only going to be read but also remembered by audiences increasingly overwhelmed with information requires us all to think very creatively when it comes to writing. Good writing is storytelling, and good stories offer memorable images rather than corporate speak or technical jargon. Good stories are rife with imagery to support the basics of storytelling: suck in the reader, create a conflict and drive the reader toward a resolution. I spent nearly two decades in journalism, and from almost day one I glommed onto the fact that we almost invariably called our pieces “stories.” Now that I’m in PR, I have to stop myself from using that word. We call our writing by various terms: press releases, articles, reports, analyses or the dreaded white paper.

But no matter what we dub them, it’s vital to remember while we write just how reporters think. Reporters are paid to tell great stories, and the closer we can get to delivering content that speaks to them, the more effective we’ll be on behalf of our clients.

Comments

[Joe]

Great first post, welcome to the blogosphere.