Weird Al Yankovic Is Making Fun Of Your Branding

Weird Al Yankovic has been poking fun of pop culture for decades, but now he's released an amazing song about business. "Mission Statement" is a biting mockery of business speak.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Weird Al says, "I wanted to do a song about all the ridiculous double-speak and meaningless buzzwords that I've been hearing in office environments my entire life … I just thought it would be ironic to juxtapose that with the song stylings of CSN [Crosby, Stills & Nash], whose music pretty much symbolizes the antithesis of corporate America."

Check out his brilliant music video:

Take the Jargon Free Challenge

Weird Al's song highlights many of the commonplace jargon we use every day, and don't even realize it:[one_half]

• World class
• Solutions
• Synergy
• Strategies
• Core competencies
• Holistically
• Best of breed
• Globalization
• Mission critical
• Administrate
• Operationalize
• Functionality
• Client centric
• Downsizing
• Proactively

[/one_half][one_half_last]

• Incentivize
• Paradigm shift
• Transitioning
• Viability
• Diversity
• Commitment to quality
• Monetize
• Fundamentals
• Value-add
• Bring to the table
• Cross platform
• Seamless integration
• Robust
• Scalable
• Day-to-day

[/one_half_last]Search your website, marketing collateral and proposals. How often does your company use these phrases? Is there a better way to say the same thing without jargon?

Jargon are weeds

If you're not careful business speak will sprout up in your marketing. The phrases are like weeds.

I redid the Jargon Free Challenge today, and realized I'm guilty of using strategies, paradigm shift and value-add far too often. I have some weeding to do.

How about you? Is your marketing free of business speak weeds?