Innovation Communicator Series™
3 Things You Should Know About:
EXECUTIVE QUOTES
11.16
One — Show, don’t tell
Executive quotes often substitute subjective comments
for what should be “said” with objective facts.
Quotes evidence failure to define the announcement or topic in terms that are
meaningful, relevant, and believable. If that content doesn’t "say" what it
means, maybe it’s not an announcement?
A promising headline is followed by technojargon, then the exec throws breathless praise on
the new product, followed by the dreaded “we’re
pleased…” throwaway line. It’s still unclear to
anyone but the initiated what the announcement
really meant.
Though the particulars of AT&T’s acquisition of Time
Warner made little sense to anyone, the company’s
CEO spent 3 minutes quoting verbatim from a
dense, buzzword-rich consultant presentation about
all of the deal’s “synergies.” It wasn’t convincing.
Two — Feature other voices
Comments by executives have no inherent value.
People don’t trust what companies say, and they particularly don’t trust things
when CEOs say them. Consider instead quoting experts, critics, and other
outsiders who’ll weigh in on your content at some point, whether sourced by
responsible journalists, or posted in the social media conversations you seek.
BP invested in a company that makes lowcarbon jet fuel. The announcement quoted
execs from both companies, but there was
no third-party affirming its credibility or
relevance. However, notice the care given
to making sure both logos appeared in the
picture?
Twitter and its former CEO pushed back against
accusations the company didn’t do enough to
fight hate speech, though their arguments
amounted to saying “trust us.” Imagine if a net
safety guru had joined their responses?
Three - Write better quotes
If you must include an exec quote, write a good one.
Your quote has to serve a purpose; it has to make the content better, not just
add to it. In 13 years of existence, my agency has never read or produced
announcement content that was improved by including marketing
communications blather put between quotation marks.
“It was perhaps one of the bigger
mistakes we made.”
Microsoft CEO Satya Nardella, describing its mobile phone efforts.
"I'm convinced that the first person to
step foot on Mars will arrive there
riding on a Boeing rocket.”
Boeing’s Dennis Muilenburg setting a goal for the company.
“No thought whatsoever.”
Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly on company plans to charge
for checked baggage.
A good quote is short, above all else; the fewer
the words, the greater the likelihood that they’ll
get reused. It’s also factual, which means
abandoning some of your CEO’s most beloved
adjectives and adverbs. Short skews to facts,
actually.
It’s personal, ideally presenting a perspective on
the news that has some feeling or other
dimension that technically can’t emerge from a
description of technology or business. In other
words, sincerity is more important than
buzzwords.
It helps to be pithy, too.
Executive quotes we analyzed for this study:
BorgWarner
Twitter
AT&T
BP
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