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Passion: The Engine of Content

This morning I logged onto the Vocus webinar about the future of PR/Marketing. Playing it in the background while doing some housekeeping work, a statement from Adam Singer (Lewis PR) grabbed my attention.

Passion is everything.

I think that hits the nail on the head much more than the standard statement that “content is king.”

People can tell if you care about what you are writing about. If your idea is to influence people in any way, you need to find a way to infuse enthusiasm into your content. We’ve always talked about creating “evangelists” and social media is a powerful tool to do this. But only if you yourself are an evangelist. You can’t create passion for your product, service, or idea if you yourself don’t have any.

That being said, I was a bit disappointed to see Mr. Singer use what I would call the “lazy” approach to deriving interest and/or attention throughout his presentation.

Namely, he peppered his speech with profanity.

“You need to give a F***.”

“Don’t write B***SH**.”

Really?

Maybe I’m just not cool enough to get this need to go there, but I’ve always been of the mindset that profanity is for the most part simply lazy language.

Note, I say “for the most part.” There is a place for the deftly placed 4-letter punctuation mark. But its place is rare and its use must be expertly weaved into your speaking voice for any credibility.

I like to point to Monty Python as the pinnacle for how to expertly use profanity. Let’s take a look at the Life of Brian, for example. For those who haven’t seen it, it’s the story of “Brian” who is born on the original Christmas, in the stable next door. He spends his life being mistaken for the messiah and the film documents all the hilarity that one could imagine goes along with such a ridiculous theme.

You watch the Life of Brian, and it isn’t until the final scene that you hear profanity. And it’s in the midst of such a contradictory scene with a host of men being crucified and Eric Idle giving a bit of a “pep” talk via song as he hangs there. In other words, the landscape and context is expertly crafted as the culminating scene unfolds with the little ditty:

“Always look on the bright side of life”

About 90% through the song, and against that ridiculous backdrop, it’s hilarious when suddenly you hear “life’s a piece of SH** when you think of it.”

It jars you because you aren’t expecting it, and the contradictory tone of the song with the surreal scene of the film makes it all the more powerful.

It works because it is unexpected and done not in a mean way, but in a humorous and absurd way. If the film had been laced with profanity, or even just held a smattering of profanity, this final scene and this last punctuation of SH** would not have been nearly as clever.

I don’t mean to get down on Mr. Singer alone. Or even hold him against the creative writing standard of Monty Python, which is grossly unfair. It’s simply that I find this lazy use of profanity has become an epidemic. It’s a problem I’ve found escalating as the mountain of content out there seems to grow exponentially. Most of the stuff you see on the web doesn’t have an editor (including what you are reading now), or even just another set of eyes.

So I’d argue that while Mr. Singer is absolutely spot on when he underscores the importance of passion, you need to be careful and thoughtful about the language that informs that passion. Words are the building blocks of content and should be chosen wisely.

Clearly the blog is a less formal content category than, say, The Wall Street Journal. But that shouldn’t give us license to give up on thinking about our language choices or strive for an authentic voice that doesn’t lean on cheap tricks in the form of four letter words.

Language is a powerful tool. After all, God literally SPOKE the world into existence.

“Let there be light.”

He didn’t say, “let there be f-ing light” in order to make a point.

As content professionals in marketing and communications we need to hold ourselves to a higher standard and put language in its rightful place as a powerful tool.

Content is still king. Passion is the engine that makes that content work. But legitimate passion doesn’t need a four letter word to make itself heard.