In a recent story in Snews on Life is Good taking heat for the way they handled ending relationships with retailers who also carry the Life is Crap brand, the following gem jumped from the page:

“I totally used John Banse’s (editor’s note: Banse is the legal counsel for Life is Good) list of comments… I didn’t really get to say much…” The email further stated, “I just tried to stay to the J Banse script, talked politely, and just restated our policy, offering that I hoped she’d see the importance of spreading optimism rather than negativity….”

A lawyer’s communication style and language is best suited for the court of law. It is direct, cold and there is lots of it so as to leave absolutely no mistake as to the intent of the communication. PR peep’s style and language is better suited for the court of public opinion. We use things like adjectives to help convey feeling and emotions.

Have you ever had a warm glowing feeling after reading a letter from a lawyer? Do you want your customers to feel that way? Let the PR peeps translate the legalese into a more palatable form so your customers will feel good and not crappy.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 29th, 2008 at 12:08 pm and is filed under PR Bits. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.