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What Did I Just Read?

EJHill
@EJHill
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Old habits die hard. I still get up every morning and read the television trade papers. A story that caught my eye this morning was Hallmark letting go of one of their executives and consolidating her position with another person's. In this day and age of tight media budgets, there's certainly nothing unusual about that. What did catch my eye was this quote from the company's press release:

Hallmark is aligning its consumer-facing touch points, including content, under a single leader… with a focus and expertise in the expression of the Hallmark brand to consumers — from product to experiences and now content, across multiple platforms.

What does that even mean? Is it actually in English? "Consumer-facing touch points?" Is that better than a consumer-facing field goal?

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Discussion (40)

  • Gary McVey@GaryMcVey

    William Safire, the Nixon speechwriter who became a longtime columnist, liked to quote choice examples of vagueness and doublespeak. Once he quoted a windy, euphemism-laden warning issued to foreign service personnel, and then translated it into plain English. "Watch Out--the local whores are spies".

  • Dr. Bastiat@drbastiat

    All three of my kids work in consulting. They always have great examples of corporate-speak. I usually can't understand the meaning. The better you get at business, the worse you get at English, apparently.

  • ctlaw@ctlaw

    Could mean:

    1. We have 10 different divisions and we are terrified somebody at one will make us the next Bud Light. So we are centralizing control.
    2. Our main operations are being sold to the Durkadurkastan Sovereign Wealth Fund. We will try hard to delude people to think we are still American, so a few Americans will control "consumer-facing touch points".
  • E. Kent Golding@EKentGolding
    ReplyingtoGary McVey

    Consumer Face

    Gary McVey (View Comment):

    William Safire, the Nixon speechwriter who became a longtime columnist, liked to quote choice examples of vagueness and doublespeak. Once he quoted a windy, euphemism-laden warning issued to foreign service personnel, and then translated it into plain English. “Watch Out–the local whores are spies”.

    Seems to fit with"consumer - facing touchpoints".

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