All posts filed under: Language

Travelling north

By Mark Di Somma

Keith Yamashita has a phrase I love. He talks about companies and brands finding their northern star. The term isn’t astronomical, it’s aspirational. He’s referring to an ideal of your company or brand that burns bright in front of you and your staff, that leads you on, that fires you up and that you never let out of your sight … It’s the brand and the culture you dream of being. It’s what your people long to be part of. And it’s who your customers always hoped you would be and that your competitors can’t be. It’s what a company’s vision should be all about. At Audacity, we call it your ambition. Without it, you drift. So many people can see that north star in some form. When I ask people in workshops about the company or the brand they dream of working for, they can tell me, sometimes in amazing detail, what it looks like, how it feels to be part of that , what it’s renowned for. They can see it. At times, …

New words and altered meanings

By Mark Di Somma

Sue sent through a list of new words and altered meanings from a competition run by The Washington Post. These were my favourites: Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time. Ignoranus : A person who’s both stupid and an asshole. Intaxicaton : Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with. Giraffiti : Vandalism spray-painted very, very high Sarchasm : The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn’t get it. Inoculatte : To take coffee intravenously when you are running late. Decafalon (n.): The gruelling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you. Glibido : All talk and no action. Coffee, n. The person upon whom one coughs. Flabbergasted, adj. Appalled by discovering how much weight one has gained. Abdicate, v. To give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach. Negligent, adj. Absentmindedly answering the door when wearing only a …

Refreshing the connections: a perspective on The Pepsi Refresh Project

By Mark Di Somma

It’s great to see Pepsi deciding to spend money over a year in communities instead of splashing the lot on the Super Bowl. It certainly makes sense at one level. Conscientious consumers are asking corporates more and more questions about where their money is being spent and how committed they are to the people who buy their goods. On that score, this is huge. And it certainly lays down the gauntlet in terms of challenging corporates to think about where they put their money. Top marks for that too. The ultimate Pepsi challenge. It’s a move that has huge feel-good. Let’s face it, what’s not to like? Pepsi’s given away more than $20 million in grants to causes that otherwise would struggle to find the money they need to make a difference. Touchdown in that regard. And there’s been incredible traffic online. So a huge participation win. A lot of people talking over an extended period of time. But there’s one other thing I think they still need to do for this to really work: …

The invisible language

By Mark Di Somma

My friend Simon is a designer. One of his favourite lines is “Great kerning will save the world”. Chances are if you’re an art director or a designer or, if like me, you work with art directors and designers every day, you’ll find this amusing because it references a whole bunch of things about the discipline, the passion and the perspectives of those committed to impeccably forged design. If you’re not a designer, you probably didn’t even grin. That’s OK. It’s not your dialect. Language is about so much more than communication and meaning. It is filled with ideas and references that to some extent reflect the worldviews of those who enjoy them. People preserve those tenets in all sorts of ways. Some they jargonise; others they culturalise or instinctualise. The acronyms are the easy part, because they are immediately confusing and confronting but at least they’re visible. I think the hardest thing to understand about any new sector you’re trying to market to is the embedded meanings, the invisible language, what goes without saying.

There’s a language for that

By Mark Di Somma

My lawyer friend Nicola used to say that a sure sign of a market coming of age was when the litigation started. I suspect she’s right. In which case, Microsoft’s petition to block Apple from trademarking the term “app store” is perhaps a sign that many can see a very bright future – perhaps the future – in this idea. Having successfully quartered “there’s an app for that”, Apple clearly identified, way back in 2008, that when you have dibs over the language around a concept, you potentially get to own the mindshare around that idea as well. You essentially force others to express their offering in language that the market sees as stemming from you. (The fact that an “app” is an abbreviation of Apple – coincidental or not – is inspired.) That of course is what Apple are so keen to protect and Microsoft so determined to challenge. Leading the conversation is hard. It’s risky. There are so many things that can of course go wrong. But there are benefits. You get discussed …