Wordcracker: Solutions
Posted: March 5, 2009 Filed under: Copywriting & Creative, Language, Vocabulary, Wordcracker, writing | Tags: Advertising, business writing, Copywriting & Creative, marketing, Solutions 4 Comments »It’s everywhere, this word solutions, especially in business, advertising and marketing. And although folks are pretty fed up with it and there is discussion all over the internet about how it is overused, I’m here to tell you that solutions will remain a part of advertising communication. After all, the best answer to a customer’s problem is always going to be the solution.
The problem–and it is such a big problem that I actually had a client tell me to avoid the word entirely–isn’t so much that the word is overused. It’s that the word is misused. Too often we see the word as an end-all, as if it means something or everything all on its own:
We sell solutions!
Used in this way, the word is empty. Who doesn’t sell solutions? But more importantly, solutions to what? This is akin to saying, “We provide services!” The only difference is that a solution sounds like a service that actually works. Still, the hollowness rings.
We also see the word in a lot of company slogans and descriptive taglines:
Advanced software solutions
Okay, a little more specific. But is software the problem and you have the solution? Or do you have solutions in the form of software? If the latter, we still don’t know what problems are being solved or how anybody benefits. There’s just too much dependence on the word solutions as a substitute for more specific, concrete language.
While the examples above cry out for a ban on the word, writer’s like myself in the trenches of persuasive writing still depend on it, and I won’t give it up without a fight. Here is an example that shows what, in my opinion, is an acceptable and even advantageous use of the word:
We create crime-fighting software applications that prevent check fraud and eliminate identity theft, real solutions that can protect your bank and your customers.
Now the word solutions is out of the limelight but still helps us position the software as a product that fully solves specific problems.
Solution will always serve nicely as an alternative for other much-used words, such as service and product. But it can’t be used as substitute for substance or for the language necessary to communicate a benefit to the prospect.
Only in the presence of the problem is solution the solution.
What’s your take?
In my line of work, I run into a large number of people for whom the problem is more important than the solution. The problem gives them purpose. The purpose is complaining. The solution only causes them to have to exert the energy it takes to find a new problem. I have a name for the these people, but your profanity filter would just change it into something else, so there is no sense using the energy required to type the extra 8 keystrokes. I would rather use that energy on the solution.
I have a problem. My next to last sentence above is poorly structured. The solution would be you allowing us to edit our own comments…or proofreading– but who has time for that? I would rather complain.
Well, we are all about solutions here, so I edited your last comment and rid it of the redundancy. Happy now?
I wiggled a little uncomfortably to see you use almost exactly the catch-phrase a company of my acquaintance has thought of using…
One of the problems with software and web app companies is that they correctly use vocab (like “applications”) that don’t always translate well to the general public, eg, potential customers. The very folk, in other words, who wouldn’t hire software/web app companies in the first place if they knew all those things themselves.
I also like short, straight-forward, Germanic words. “Make” is a good word. (So is “stuff.”)
Maybe — just playing here — “We make crime-fighting software that prevents check fraud and eliminates identity theft. We’ve got the answers that protect both your bank and your customers.