2-year-old Gracie Melvin angered Liberals with her appearance at a Conservative rally in Harbour Grace, N.L. on Thursday. While Stephen Harper was giving a speech, she walked across the stage with a sign that said “Harper”.

Senior Liberal strategist Tom Dumont has accused the two year old of misconstruing Dion’s Green Shift plan. “Clearly, Gracie is perpetuating these untruths to the public without a full understanding of the historical and comparative evidence in regards to a carbon tax”.

Dumont says Gracie should resign, and that if she does not, Stephen Harper should ask her to step down. When asked by reporters yesterday whether Gracie should resign, Harper stated this was a case of “gotcha journalism”.

Liberal pundits say Harper is obscuring the facts. Liberal blogger Yannick Grenkovich believes Gracie’s action are “the beginning of a shift to low-blow attacks and smokescreen tactics” by the Conservative Party.

Conservative candidate for Harbour Grace, Martin O’Neill, defended Gracie, saying “Her criticism of the corporate aspect of the tax is fundamentally sound”.

The Green Shift plan, which Dion has called “the foundation of the Liberal platform” has been a difficult sell, especially in Eastern Canada.

Gracie has defended her actions, telling reporters in St. John’s yesterday that “det doon. Aiee jejo, mama. No no no.”

Stephane Dion has responded sharply, saying “Wearil seayrosl, da chel on fredolay dreder deuh wahn”.

Chapter 6: Salespeak in Canadian Party Platforms and Public Policy

This chapter is dedicated to Dan Lungo

The important thing here is that we have a theory to start with, and some examples of how the theory may work. The best way to show that our politicians are speaking to us differently today is to compare today’s political language to the political language of the past. This is not a simple task, mainly because today there are policies and written documents for which there are no comparable written documents in the past. And in cases where there are policies that appear comparable, we need to be careful, because policy documents, even when they deal with the same topics, seem suited to different purposes or tasks. For example, the 1964 White Paper on Defence initially seems comparable to the Defence Section of Canada’s 2005 International Policy Statement, but each policy says it has a different objective. The White Paper’s purpose was “to preserve the peace by supporting collective defence measures to deter military aggression; to support Canadian foreign policy, including that arising out of our participation in international organizations and to provide for the protection and surveillance of our territory, our airspace, and our coastal waters” , while the 2005 policy’s purpose is “to guide the Canadian Forces in their operations, and assist the Department of National Defence in the development of a sustainable long-term program” . Therefore, here we can only do our best to show that salespeak is present in current policy documents.

Party platforms are a different matter, because unlike a policy, a platform always does the same thing – it articulates the party’s position for the purpose of getting elected. The problem here is that policy platforms have not always existed in Canada, and where they have, the records are difficult to obtain. During the time of product-oriented parties, it is very clear that politicians just expected their “product” to sell. From 1867 to the early 1900’s, most party platforms, as we call them today, were expressed as speeches, and occasionally in letters to the newspaper . Nearing the middle of the twentieth century, official party platforms, pamphlets, and leaflets became more common, and beginning in the early 1960’s the Liberal Party and the Progressive Conservatives always came up with official party “programs” and “handbooks”. Therefore, it is possible to go back and compare the language of political marketing with the language of product and sale-oriented politics. Here we will focus on Liberal Party platforms, since the Liberal Party is the longest standing, and arguably the most efficient, political marketing party in Canada.

The striking feature of policies written today is that they are policies in development. They are not simply plans, rather, they are plans to make plans; policies that are “committed” to “developing” policies. They pretend to get things done, and leave enough room for our government to do something we may not have wanted it to do. Also, as expected, they avoid using words that might make somebody, or something, liable. The policies here were picked either according to their relevance in current affairs (The Government Security Policy, and 10-Year Plan to Strengthen Health Care), or because they are so full of salespeak that they make an easy target (Communication Policy).

Let us begin with the Government Security Policy. A word frequency test showed that the word “develop” is the seventeenth most used word (used 34 times) in the policy, above “it” and below “national”. This is impressive, since there are 1178 different words in the document. What are some of the things being developed?

- “arrangements that outline security responsibilities”
- “standards of the security policy”
- “procedures for reporting and investigating security incidents and taking corrective action”
- “the Government Security Policy”
- “a strategy that will enable the Government of Canada to identify, recruit, retain and continually educate security professionals”
- “specialized SIGINT and ITS training”
- “appropriate record-keeping advice and guidance”
- “operational standards and technical documentation” X3
- “education, training and awareness programs”

This policy is set to develop standards for itself. It is also “developing” arrangements of security responsibilities, standards, and strategies – all things which should be part of the policy. Basically this policy is still in “development”. You can criticize it, but you might as well not bother. It is not finished yet.

The Communication Policy of the Government of Canada is written in a similar way. The word “implement” is the forty ninth most used word (used 31 times) out of 1742 words, and is one of those tricky words that leaves you unsure about whether anything is going to happen. Concrete things are rarely “implemented” or “made to happen” (whatever “implement” actually means). Here are some of the things being “implemented” by the government and government agencies in the Communications Policy:

- “communication plans and strategies”
- “policies, programs, services and initiatives”
- “communication plans and strategies”
- “policies, programs, services and initiatives with the ongoing advice, support and involvement of specialists in government communications”

A policy that intends to “implement” “plans”, “strategies”, initiatives”, “programs”, and of all things, “policies” is not a policy at all. It is a policy to create policies. If this is unconvincing, here are some of the things being “developed” by the government and government agencies in the Communications Policy:

- “policies”
- “government wide communications policy”
- “Plans and strategies for communicating risk to the public”
- “plans and procedures for handling emergencies”
- “standard operating procedures”
- “communication plans and strategies for policies, programs, services and initiatives”
- “communication programs and campaigns”
- “communications policy requirements, guidelines and procedures for the approval of the Treasury Board as required”

Again, a communications policy that intends to develop “government-wide communications policy”, “communications policy requirements”, and “plans and strategies” is not a policy at all. As you read the document, it is difficult not to remark, “but isn’t this the policy?”

Next is the First Ministers’ Meeting on the Future of Health Care 2004: A 10-Year Plan to Strengthen Health Care. There is no doubt, almost immediately as you begin to read it, that this is a plan to create a plan. The second paragraph reads, “First Ministers remain committed to the dual objectives of better management of wait times and the measurable reduction of wait times where they are longer than medically acceptable” . In other words, there is no guarantee that these objectives will be met, but we should feel better, because at least our First Ministers are “committed” to them. They are unwilling to say something that would make them take responsibility for what happens, like “Within ten years, wait times for x cancer patients will be reduced by a minimum of y months”. At a time when Canadians are looking for guarantees that universal health care will survive, the words “pledge”, “guarantee”, “promise”, and “assure” do not appear. The word “ensure” appears twice, but all that is being “ensured” is:

- “First Ministers have come together and agreed on an action plan… to ensure that all Canadians have access to the health care services they need, when they need them”
- “First Ministers agree to continue and accelerate their work on Health Human Resources action plans and/or initiatives to ensure an adequate supply and appropriate mix of health care professionals” .

It is doubtful Canadians will be comforted by the idea that this 10 year plan involves agreeing upon and accelerating plans and/or initiatives to ensure Canadians get universal health care. This is supposed to be the plan.

Then the Liberal Party platform of 2005 states “much is left to be done to carry on what the Paul Martin government has started, in order to… ensure that the commitments of all Canada’s First Ministers to deliver more timely, patient centred public health care are actually delivered” . Of course, the problem is that there are no commitments in the First Ministers’ plan.

The Liberal Party platform is full of salespeak. The word “develop” appears 112 times, and is the seventeenth most used word, just below “health” and “Canadians”. The word “commit” appears 92 times, making it the twenty third most used word, between “it” and “Canadian”. There are no “promises” or “pledges”, and nothing is “assured”, “ensured” or “guaranteed”, because the party does not want to be held accountable for anything. When the word “ensure” is used, it is only used in the sense that the Canadian public should elect Paul Martin so he can keep working on a plan to ensure something. For instance, the platform states “much is left to be done to carry on what the Paul Martin government has started, in order to… ensure that access to college or university education is not denied by reason of income” . The Liberal Party has been working on this idea for a long time, probably as far back as the 1958 election, when their platform stated “The Liberal Party believes that Canada must end the situation in which many young men and women are shut off, by lack of funds, from education that they have the ability and ambition to use to the country’s advantage” . Perhaps the party did not have time to make this happen in the 32 years they formed the government between 1958 and 2006. The difference between today’s version and the 1958 version is important. The former makes it seem as if something is going to happen if we buy the Liberals’ “product”, and the latter is the party affirming its “belief” in something. Saying “we believe” or “we support” is not salespeak, it is simply sales – trying to sell the image or idea of the party.

It is rare that the 2005 Liberal platform says “the Liberal party will do x.” Instead, they are “committed to doing y”, because being “committed” to something does not mean you actually have to do it, it just means you intend to do it whenever it is convenient. Maybe this year, maybe next. Maybe in ten years, but maybe never if the public forgets.
Nor does the Liberal Party actually “promise” anything. Where the word “promise” is used, it refers to promises the Liberal Party supposedly kept (even though they currently do not seem to promise anything). There is also an instance of “promised initiatives”, which is convenient, because “initiatives” are just things that begin – they tend not to become anything. And in the case of health care, the platform ensures that it is the provinces which “promise” to “establish multi-year targets to achieve… benchmarks” . Not only are the Liberals here unable to assure us themselves that the provinces will be made to do this, but the “promise” is not actually a promise to do anything. A “benchmark” is a standard used for comparison that serves as a target. In other words, this is a promise to establish targets to achieve targets. Anybody who uses this type of language in a regular job gets fired.

The Liberal Party platform today only appears to tell us a whole lot more than it has in the past. But actually, not much has changed. During the time when the Liberal Party would have theoretically been product-oriented, it is clear that there is little attempt to sell or market the party. For example, the Liberal Party platform of 1896 (one of the few actual platforms from that time) can claim simply that the Liberals are for “reduced taxation”, and provide virtually no detail as to what they intend to do beyond saying the tariff “should be so adjusted as to make free, or to bear as lightly as possible upon, the necessaries of life” . During the sales-oriented period the Liberal party platforms spoke about what Canada “should” do, what the Liberal Party “stands” for “favours”, “believes”, “advocates”, and what their “aim” is . And of course, today, once you get past the language, it is easy to see that the Liberal Party is as vague as ever. The difference is that the language of political marketing tells us what we want to hear, in great detail, and without actually telling us anything. We are made to feel as if our politicians are listening to us; that we are more involved in the process. This is the power of salespeak.

This, of course, is just a starting point. It is good that we have a theory and some examples that seem to fit, but there is still work to be done. We must continue to develop and enhance measures that enable us to spot salespeak, and consider a process for coordinating the analysis of speeches and policy-related assets. We must also implement sustainable initiatives to assess the glossary of salespeak indicator words. Most importantly perhaps, we must evaluate, on an ongoing basis, whether the methodology here facilitates the strategic objectives of a new integrated theory of doublespeak. Reviewing these commitments will remain a key priority going forward.

Chapter 5: The Concept of Salespeak

Once again, Salespeak is:

Communication in the form of policy documents, party platforms, and writing and speech related to these, that uses the findings of market intelligence to make citizens believe they are getting the type of government they want and requested. To write or speak this way requires forms of corporate language that hide inequality while setting out a way for people to do things, without actually requiring them to do those things (TQM, HRM, “change”, and “dialogue”), and avoiding liability or faking accountability.

In other words, it is a way our governments and parties speak to us when the only thing that matters is getting elected or re-elected, and it allows our leaders to say they are going to do something in a way that absolves them of any requirement to actually do the thing they said they were going to do. However, if we already have the well known term, doublespeak, to describe everything that salespeak does, why should salespeak matter?

First, we need to determine what doublespeak really means; only then can we begin to understand why a new concept, one of an evolved form of doublespeak, should prove useful.

Orwell never used the term doublespeak. The concept was a combination of his idea of doublethink – the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them – and newspeak, a language where words are being removed to limit the range of human thought.

There are four kinds of doublespeak: euphemism, jargon, gobbledygook / bureaucratese, and inflated language designed to make the ordinary seem extraordinary . Euphemism means substituting a negative word or term for a positive one. Sometimes this is used for politeness reasons, i.e, telling your child their cat “passed away” instead of telling them it was “killed”, or worse, “run over by a car”. But it can also be used to deceive, i.e, the invasion of Iraq was also called “disarming Saddam”, and “freeing the Iraqi people”. Jargon is the language of a specific job or profession. It is not usually considered harmful within the profession that uses it. The problems arise when jargon is used on people outside the jargon group. Gobbledygook or bureaucratese is the piling of long words, one on top of the other, in an attempt to overwhelm the audience with words . Lastly, inflated language designed to make the ordinary seem extraordinary is something we see regularly. For example, a book shelver at Chapters becomes a “customer experience representative”, and a call centre worker is a “client care specialist”. Similarly, the U.S. invasion of Grenada was billed as “pre-dawn vertical insertion” . The essence of doublespeak is that it pretends to communicate, but really does not .

Salespeak does all these things. In a sense, it is doublespeak. But unlike doublespeak, we can know the origin, purpose, and place of salespeak. We know where it came from, we know where to look for it, and we know what it tries to do. And if we intend to fight against government deception and manipulation, this is good to know.

Because doublespeak is so broad, people use it to describe manipulative or deceptive language everywhere, and for everything. There is doublespeak at the workplace, at home, at school, in government, in business. But if the whole point of coming up with these insights is to change the way things are, we need to focus on a clearer concept. Salespeak can do this. It points us towards the way our governments and parties communicate with us, and it points us towards policy documents, party platforms, and documents and speeches related to these things.

Focusing on doublespeak and refining our understanding of what kinds of doublespeak are used when, where, and for what purpose, should allow us to see where we are being deceived, and come up with solid counter-arguments. Steven Poole also does this in Unspeak: How Words Become Weapons, How Weapons Become a Message, and How That Message Becomes Reality. Unspeak, he explains, is a way of silencing opposing points of view by using words that lay a claim right at the start to only one way of looking at a problem . For instance, those who call themselves “pro-life” because they are against abortion attempt to defeat any counter-argument by virtue of that name – because nothing is better than “life”, certainly not “choice”. Similarly, when those who support the invasions of Iraq or Afghanistan tell us they “support the troops”, this is an attempt to make it seem as if those who do not support the war are against the troops. This is what makes unspeak a political weapon. But when we are aware of how it works, we can fight it, and this is why we need salespeak as well.

Some might suggest that doublespeak or salespeak are inherent to politics, so why bother. Politics, it seems, requires a language of its own to keep everybody happy. Crozier, for instance, believes vagueness or apparent lack of direction in public policy “opens up the space for creativity” so there can be “policy experimentation” and “innovation” . But in a democracy where we are struggling to keep people involved and interested in the political process, this kind of thinking only benefits parties and governments – not people. If our parties and governments are vague and unclear so that they can conduct “policy experimentation” – in other words, do things we never wanted them to do – this is not something we will appreciate. Crozier and other scholars, especially those in political communications, do not see the situation like this. Maybe their thinking is obscured by their language:

“One of the major tasks of the new political communications expertise is to cultivate specific meanings in the public’s imagination. Here there is an attempt to create synergies between the stage production of politics and the citizenry’s sense of social reality. In this case, there is a process of anticipating meaning through research (polling) and experimentation (focus groups) in order to try to manage the flow of these shifting associations .”

We would know whether this new political communication is harmful to democracy if it were defined in a way that says what it means, but this is not the case here.

All we really have here is a theory, so we still need to know how to spot salespeak. There are two criteria it should satisfy, not including that it must be found in a policy document, party platform, or writing and speeches related to these.

1) The context should be right, i.e., the reader or listener can reasonably assume the writer or speaker is saying they will do something in a way that absolves them of any obligation to actually do it. In other words, upon close examination it does not appear they are saying they will do anything for sure.
2) The words should be right (see Appendix).
a) It uses words or terms that do not necessarily indicate anything is going to happen.
b) It uses words or terms which avoid liability or create a false sense of accountability.
c) It uses words or terms which are placatory or create a false sense of equality.

Of course, there is a need to build on and refine the methodology here, especially if we want to somehow quantify salespeak, but what we have will suffice for now, at least to show that salespeak is real.

Chapter 4: Political Marketing Meets Corporate Language

Many might expect the answer to be that that the corporate world has created the most effective language tools for advertising, selling something, and then affirming to the buyer that they purchased the best thing. But a language that attempts to make you purchase a product, or make you believe that you purchased the best product, differs from a language designed to fool you into believing you bought the product you really wanted and requested. The former language is simply sales, and the latter is salespeak. When sales works correctly, maybe you become convinced that you need a piece of twisted up metal with a square cushion to do a sit-up. But if salespeak works correctly, when you ask for your ab workout machine, you may get a toaster and still believe you got the ab workout machine.

The corporate world has provided the tools for this type of communication, but this has been primarily in its internal communications. When companies began substantially increasing in size about a century ago, they ran into planning and co-ordination problems, making good communication essential . Forms of corporate communication soon spread into many modes of public expression (see Schiller 1989). Then research began to indicate that a “human resources management” (HRM) or “total quality management” (TQM) approach would be more effective than earlier forms of communication, which relied on top-down, military-style instructions. The new approach came with a language all its own – a language designed to conceal inequality, and that set out a way of doing things without requiring anybody to actually do them. Corporations also became more involved in public life, and thus increasingly came into conflict with the public during recessions and other times of market failure. To deal with these situations, companies learned to use a language that avoids liability. These two types of language form the basis of salespeak.

When TQM was founded by W. Edwards Deming, Joseph Juran, and Kaoru Ishikawa , it was considered a scientific breakthrough in the rational planning and management of organizations. “Total” meant organization-wide, and “quality” referred to three things: 1) quality of returns on investment; in other words, staying in business and doing well, 2) quality of products - the belief was that low cost-products would, for various reasons, be more expensive in the long-run, and 3) quality of life for employees. Instead of a top-down approach to management, the founders advocated a “have faith in your employees approach” to tap employees’ creative capabilities and capacity for hard work. There was to be no more punishing employees for poor performance, only “evaluations”, and “professional development”. Senior management were no longer supposed to be supervisors, they were to be “leaders”, leading by example in assuring quality. Essentially there were to be no followers or losers – everyone is part of a “team”, and everyone feels “empowered”.

The problem was that companies used the rhetoric of TQM without actually doing TQM. Companies created mission statements and business principles, and used an arsenal of TQM terms to create a sense of democracy that did not exist. Fox and Fox dissect some of these terms:

- Empowerment = making somebody else take the risk and responsibility.
- Team Working = reducing individual discretion .
We can add to these:
- Professional Development = extra training.
- Evaluation / Review = detailed and recorded monitoring

Zbaracki conducted an in-depth study of five organizations, and found that only one of these organizations backed their TQM rhetoric “by outlining specific expectations and counsel on the use of TQM tools” . The remainder did a lot of talking about TQM, and used the rhetoric, but did not do anything to make TQM happen.

Zbaracki gives some examples: “upper management for a defence contractor revised two of their management policy statements to reflect its new commitment to TQM, and a hotel’s upper management developed a mission statement that supported TQM” .

The language of HRM and TQM is still popular today, and it mostly goes unnoticed. The Canadian McDonald’s “career” web page says, “at McDonald’s, we recognize our real strength is our people. They are the foundation of our business” . Of course, what else can they say? That the foundation is profits? Low wages? Machines?

MacDonald’s “Five People Principles” are classic TQM. Some of the sub-principles listed are:
- Employees are respected, valued and empowered.
- We coach and learn.
- Employees are provided the tools they need to develop personally and professionally .

Similarly, The Gap tells us “our people are what make Gap Inc. a great company” and Canadian Tire calls themselves a “proud Canadian family” .

TQM is full of platitudes like this that mask the reality of power relations. It is also full of ambiguity. “Mission statements”, lists of “values”, “objectives”, “visions”, and expressions of a desire for “continuous improvement” are common. Workers need not worry about having their ambitions constrained, because companies assure them they have created “an enabling environment” . Companies use these terms in the hope that its employees will begin to think this way, in this language. Heath does not see so much of a problem with this, arguing, “the key… is the realization that organizations function adequately because of strategic ambiguity”, because ambiguities are “predictable scripts and cues needed for enactment” . “Enactment” is a TQM word that implies employees simply act out their roles, almost spontaneously, without direction. And they can do this because the “mission statements”, “objectives”, etc., are like a “script”, and employees are just acting out their parts. Even better than plain “enactment” is “joint enactment”, which Heath describes as the process of managers becoming involved in “enact(ing) a drama with employees rather than attempt to direct the actions of employees” . The rhetoric of TQM here almost moves into the realm of fantasy. Imagine - it is not that your boss is coming down to your cubicle to supervise, or to pass on directions. He is coming down to enact a drama with you.

There are scholars, besides Heath, who are not helping the situation. Rapert et al re-affirm the findings of other research which shows the “importance of consensus in strategic implementation”, where consensus means “shared understandings between management and functional levels” . Luckily, much of the research which attempts to build on the rhetoric of TQM is unsuccessful precisely because the language used is so vague (or just plain bad). The word “strategic” finds its way into most of this literature, but nobody seems to know what it means. Usually, when something is described as “strategic” we are supposed to think it is better. For instance, what Smith and Hirst call “strategic political segmentation” is just an expanded form of normal political segmentation. We could argue that “strategic” means “planned”, but that would not explain the almost-every day use of “strategic planning” in marketing and public language. You can make anything sound more sophisticated by adding “strategic”: Strategic marketing, strategic networking, strategic research, strategic grocery shopping…

Adding “implementation” onto “strategic” makes something very simple sound sophisticated. If “implementation” is the execution of something, then “strategic implementation” really means “something being executed better”. And what is a “functional level”? Where would we find the “non-functional level?”

Sometimes HRM or TQM language succeeds in fooling workers into believing that their company is indeed some sort of “family” or “team”, but often it does not. As we know from our own experiences and the experiences of those around us, when workers in a TQM company go home, they often still use the old language of management – “my boss”, “my manager”, and complain about “overtime”, and receiving “warnings”. Workers are generally aware of the disconnect between TQM rhetoric and reality. For example, employees in one of the organizations studied by Zbaracki wondered why they had to use the TQM process while their managers apparently did not .

There are scholars and business people who have sensed this disconnect, and have come up with an interesting, if manipulative, way to mitigate it. They call it simply “dialogue”, and in Yankelovich’s The Magic of Dialogue: Transforming Conflict into Co-operation, it is billed as “a process of successful relationship building and seeking mutual understanding” . The idea is that companies should physically get workers and managers together, bring assumptions out into the open, explore common ground, listen to each other, and seek new options. Isaacs, in Dialogue and the Art of Thinking Together: A Pioneering Approach to Communicating in Business and in Life, urges an almost Zen-like approach to problem solving, where disputants at a meeting must “be present” and “be still and listen to what is true right now” .

The problem is that it is managers themselves that have to initiate this process, hypothetically, in response to layoffs, pay disputes, and other conflicts between workers and managers. “Dialogue” is just a touchy-feely way of hiding contradiction, designed to blur the distinction between management and workers, without getting to the root of the problem – hierarchy and socio-economic inequality. Yankelovich discusses an instance of a trade union dispute being worked out through “dialogue”, where one union member was heard to say, “you know, I can’t tell who is on what side anymore”. The magic of dialogue indeed. If there is ever any doubt about who is on what side, compare paycheques.

TQM’s latest, most used, and over-used innovation in language that conceals hierarchy, is the rhetoric of “change”. This type of rhetoric is used to subtly assert or re-assert top-down management practices, either in cases where companies have been “flattened” (had parts of their hierarchy removed), or in cases where a company is experiencing some upheaval (i.e, layoffs, significant profit losses, difficult competition, etc).

We have all probably heard somebody say “this is a time of change”, as if we had just emerged from a period where everything stood still – un-time, if you will, since change is fundamental to time. In “A Best Practice Approach to Designing a Change Communication Programme”, Barrett tells us “in today’s business climate… the only true constant is change”, therefore, we must learn the ways of “change communication” . The features of this type of communication are similar to TQM rhetoric, but according to Barrett, “change communication” also requires: educating employees on what the change will mean to them; motivating support for the company’s new direction; and limiting misunderstandings and rumours that may damage productivity . These features and the “best practices” Barrett offers really amount to a communications program designed to make employers accept something they probably do not want. The part about “limiting misunderstandings and rumours that may damage productivity” is telling. This can also mean, “if your employees are figuring out that they are losing their jobs because you are outsourcing for cheaper labour, either find ways to keep them quiet or tell them something different”.

Once “change communication” appears in company communications, it tends to stay, most likely because managers are convinced of its effectiveness in stifling dissent and giving them greater power. But a study of large companies by Beer, Eisenstat, and Spector shows that the rhetoric of “change” makes employees cynical, and there is no actual change .

Therefore, although HRM and TQM were designed to make companies work in a different way, they function best, and most often, only as linguistic constructs suitable for disguising hierarchical power relations, and setting out a way of doing things, without requiring anybody to actually do them.

The other corporate language that forms the basis for salespeak is the language that avoids liability. This type of language attempts to shift responsibility, or attempts to make it seem as if nobody is to blame for something. As corporations became more involved in public life and sometimes made bold mistakes, they began to attract a lot of scrutiny. The public became aware of massive profits accrued at the expense of the environment, jobs, and, in general, company responsibility. Corporations soon became more vulnerable to public investigations, lawsuits, and scandals.

To deal with these problems corporations did two things: first, they started programs of “corporate social responsibility” to make themselves look like they were part of their communities and responsible citizens, but more importantly, they began working on a language to avoid liability in the first place.

McCord explains, “in the not too distant past, a business person with no legal training could communicate on the job without worrying unduly that casual utterances or routine business writing might result in a legal liability” . But as the public challenged corporations more and more, this changed. Companies could be found legally accountable if their words were interpreted by courts as creating a legal contract.

Therefore, business writers needed to become more careful in their writing, more “word-conscious” . Woolever uses legal case studies to show how certain words and terms create liability, and offers alternative words and terms that avoid liability. For instance, in State Farm Mutual Auto Insurance Co. v. Rickoff, the insurance company should not have used the word “inspection” in its engineering report, because “inspection” implies thoroughness, officiality, testing, or providing recommendations. Woolever says the company should have used words like “review” and “study” (96) to avoid being sued, because these words avoid liability . When a student “reviews” or “studies” their notes, this could mean something thorough, but it could also mean they flipped through the pages as fast as possible and then went out for a beer.

Woolever suggests another company should have substituted the word “determine” with “evaluated”, “assess”, or “analyze”, and in another case, substituted the word “assure” for “facilitate”, “provide further confidence”, or “enhance the reliability of” . Why? Because the words she recommends will not get the company into legal trouble.

The problem is that these terms are also vague and essentially meaningless. If you intended to send a parcel somewhere, would you want the delivery of that parcel “assured” or “facilitated”? Do you want your eligibility for Canadian citizenship “determined” or “assessed”? The words “assure” and “determine” imply that something will get done, and you will know the results. But for companies, this is bad. As Woolever explains, “determine” means “decide”, and “assure” means “promise” . What she is telling us is that companies should not say these things, but the result of her recommendations may be that companies do not have to do these things either; that they do not have to “decide” or “promise” anything. Why should a company “decide” or “assure” a product is safe, when they can “facilitate an assessment” of the product’s safety? This type of communication is great for companies, but bad for people.

McCord and Woolever are more concerned with what corporations say than what they do. For example, Woolever says an “ultimate responsibility” of corporations is that they “bear the legal burden that their prose is trustworthy” , and McCord believes “it makes no difference what you think, what is important is what you communicate” . Both of these statements are plain wrong, if not for business, then surely for politics. An ultimate responsibility of corporations is not to communicate properly, but to make sure they act as conscientious corporate citizens in the first place, so that they have no need for language that avoids liability. And saying that it makes no difference what you think, only what you communicate, almost encourages corporations to lie, especially if “what you think” really means “what you are doing”.

Nonetheless, the corporate language that avoids liability and fakes accountability remains one of the most prominent and effective features of corporate language overall. Amernic and Craig studied the CEO-speak of popular companies such as Enron, Microsoft, AOL Time Warner, IBM, Disney, Nortel, and CN, and found that CEO-speak is “a seductive, placatory, variegated, socially constructed language of accountability” that ironically permits CEOs to be unaccountable . There should be no doubt – a business language that dodges liability is also a language that may let businesses do something they should not be doing.

The corporate languages that feign equality and avoid liability are the tools of political marketing communications, whose purpose is to make the public think they got what they requested. What more could our governments and parties want than to make us believe we are all in this together, and there is no one to blame?

Chapter 3: A Theory of Political Marketing – Political Marketing as Social Control

If political marketing is the reason our government communicates with us in salespeak, then we need to know what political marketing really is. To do this we will examine its origins and then look at how it works in theory and practice. The conclusion is that although it purports to measure public opinion and translate this opinion into policy, in reality, it takes public opinion and uses it primarily to communicate policy a certain way.

The origins of political marketing actually began with what Terrence Qualter terms the “mass age”. As he explained, “prior to the liberal ideological revolution of the 18th Century and the consequent spread of egalitarian and majoritarian ideas, it did not really much matter what the public thought” . But as these ideologies became revolutions, forming the basis of more democratic governments and the enfranchisement of millions of people, suddenly it mattered what the public thought. Governments had to at least maintain the appearance of popular support, or risk being overthrown, and the only way to do this was with increasingly sophisticated forms of manipulation .

Scammel and Lees-Marshment show how these forms of manipulation (though they would not use such a strong word) in both business and politics, went through three successive stages in the 20th Century:

1) Product oriented – The party or company puts out the best product it can and assumes it will sell.
2) Sales oriented – The party or company tries to make people want what it has to offer by using general forms of communication, including various media and advertising.
3) Market oriented – The party or company uses market intelligence to find out what the customer wants, and then creates or modifies its product to suit these wants.

Marketing became the cornerstone of business philosophy because of the shift in market power from the seller to the buyer . When marketing was applied to politics, marketing language came with it: the “consumer” or “customer” is the voter, and the “product” is the party and/or party leader, platform, and policies. The political process became an “exchange” relationship – you give them your vote, and they will give you their “product”. Their credibility is based on their ability to “deliver”.

Lees-Marshment and Lilleker conducted comparative studies of political marketing, and observed that a market-oriented party goes through nine stages :

1) Market intelligence - To find out what “consumers” want, governments and their public relations firms use mostly polls and focus groups. Polls collect the quantitative or raw data, but focus groups are needed to gauge how people feel about something.
2) Product design - The “product” is designed according to the intelligence gathered.
3) Product Adjustment - The party looks to its values, its history, and the input of its members to decide if the “product” design is suitable. It considers how this “product” will look compared to the “product” of other parties.
4) Implementation - The “product” design is accepted.
5) Communication – The “product” is put out to the public, media, members of the party, and government. Intelligence informs the style, format, content, method, and timing of this communication.
6) Campaign – The party campaigns with “targeted” voter segments in mind.
7) Election and measurement – If political marketing is successful so far, the party is elected. Then the party conducts opinion polls and focus groups to confirm positive feedback on aspects of their “product”.
8 ) “Delivery” – The party does what it says it was going to do.
9) Maintain a market orientation – The party continues to gather market intelligence and adjust the “product” as needed. Communication of the current “product” and future “products” continues, as part of what has been called the “permanent campaign” .

It is important to note that not all parties, and not all companies for that matter, are market-oriented companies, although they may participate in some marketing processes, such as accessing market intelligence. Lees-Marshment and Lilleker contend that a true market-oriented party will go through all nine stages listed above.

It is the communication stage with which we are most concerned. The same way the marketers of Apple’s iPod made sure their commercials targeted youth and not grannies, political marketers want to make sure they target people who are willing to “exchange” their vote for political representation. This process is known as segmentation. In politics, as opposed to business, it is more difficult to segment, because ideally, you want to reach everybody. This is why, as Johnson-Cartee and Copeland point out, segmentation in political marketing is simply “identifying those publics so that as communicators we can adapt our message for maximum effect” . But segmentation today goes beyond the traditional geographic and demographic methods, and since around 1990 has increasingly used psychographic / attitudinal bases to classify political markets . Once market research and segmentation are complete, it is time for “product positioning”, or more simply, the presentation of images and messages appropriate to its “target markets”. And although parties and governments still try to have a “product” for everybody – youth, working poor, “single-parent families” (single mothers), yuppies, seniors, etc, - there is evidence to suggest that they predominantly position themselves according to various points on the political spectrum . For example, Canada’s New Democratic Party, the largest left-wing party in Canada, might position itself according to segments such as “Radical left”, “moderate left”, “Green left”, “Old NDP”, “Left-leaning Liberals”, etc. This way it could garner as much of the relevant left-wing vote as possible.

Political marketing has now become a sub-discipline of political science. Many scholars who write about political marketing seem in awe of it, and treat it like a new house, excitedly exploring the rooms, arranging furniture, figuring out what goes where, and how everything will work, or should work. There are few who bother to find out how political marketing is actually working, and how it negatively affects democracy. Essentially, the sub-discipline of political marketing rarely recognizes problems with the parallel between business marketing and political marketing, and what is worse, some scholars go on to improve the process of political marketing without realizing the consequences.

Palmer finds six problems with the parallel between normal marketing and political marketing, and I have added some examples.

1) In politics, the “product” only has symbolic value, and the range of products is very limited. For example, whereas a car company can usually offer a coupe, sedan, hatchback, different coloured cars with different features, etc, the political product is one intangible thing.
2) The political “product” makes people very emotional, whereas nobody dances on the street or protests when Pepsi releases a new soda.
3) There are negative “consumers” in politics who prefer the competition’s “product” just to deny you a “sale”. This would make about as much sense in the real consumer world as buying a bag of Hostess potato chips out of spite for Old Dutch when your real preference is Pringles.
4) It is more difficult to gauge what political “consumers” want, and the research is not very well funded. “Product positioning” in politics is more likely to fail because situations change so quickly. For example, a record company can safely release radio-friendly alternative-rock albums and feel confident that the market for radio-friendly alternative-rock will not disappear overnight. Political parties tend not to “position” themselves in any clear sense because public opinion can shift so quickly.
5) “Re-branding” in politics is complex due to the role of ideology. Changing a party logo, giving the party leader a makeover, or putting rap music in party advertisements implies that the party actually does something it did not do before. Such “re-branding” can alienate long-time party supporters. In contrast, when a company re-brands a consumer product, the re-branding is interpreted as saying “this product is for you too”.

O’Shaughnessy agrees that “marketing is fundamentally a business discipline, whose supreme relevance lies in business” and adds to the list of differences:

1) Political “products” are given a lot of time, consideration, and discussion in the media.
2) It is comparatively rare that a business or company will need so much “spin” to defend its product.
3) Political products are about identity and self-articulation .

We can contest the last point because it is well known that consumer products also sell identity. For example, when you eat a “frozen entrée”, better known as a TV dinner, you are not just somebody eating frozen food out of a cardboard envelope, you are somebody who is “on-the-go”.

The biggest difference, however, between real marketing and political marketing is this: real marketing finds out what we want, and then sells us that thing. Political marketing, as we will soon see, finds out what we want only so that parties and governments can make it look and sound like we are getting what we want.

This goes against Lees-Marshment’s assertion that political marketing “does not attempt to change what people think, but to deliver what they need and want” . And, of course, if we are not in reality getting what we want, but only getting the impression that we are getting what we want, then Lees-Marshment and Lilleker’s claim that political marketing makes politics a “more satisfying process for the electorate” is misleading.

Market-oriented parties are obviously primarily concerned with winning or holding power. In this situation, Qualter explains that ideologies become flexible, and policies are no longer moral commitments, just things that are useful in attracting voter support .

Research by Worcester and Baines, Lilleker and Negrine, and Bowler and Farrell shows that market intelligence is not being used to inform policy, it is just being used to communicate policy in different ways. As Bowler and Farrell suggest, “polls don’t ask voters what they want, they only seek reactions to what they have already decided to do” . And depending on this reaction, the words and terms used to describe the policy may change, but its substance stays the same.

In Lilleker and Negrine’s studies of British government insiders, a common theme was that political marketing was more a matter of:

developing policy and then finding out the values out there on the street, and then reflecting those values in any communication on that policy. It is taking the right language, (and) convincing voters that you share their concerns and can offer a viable solution .

Data from polls and focus groups is being used to brush up the look and feel of the policy; nothing more. We can at least be fairly certain that market intelligence does not directly affect the policy process, because as one British Conservative MP stated in an interview, “I do listen, but I don’t know how I use all the stuff I hear” . And when we seriously consider how a pure market-orientation would affect policy, the notion seems absurd. There are enough opinions out there to convince any market intelligence analyst that we want everything at once, even if the things we want contradict each other - for example, lower taxes and more or improved government services. Even for a business, a pure market orientation would be unrealistic, because the range of products would be limited by consumers’ imaginations. Evidence suggests that many products, including some of the most original and popular products like the Sony Walkman, were created in defiance of market research . And in defiance of data gathered in political marketing intelligence, our parties and governments have already prepared and “delivered” their “product”. All that is left is to make us think we got what we wanted.

The evidence should make us reconsider Lees-Marshment’s stages of political marketing. Lilleker and Negrine go so far as to say that all parties are actually product or sales-oriented . The figure below better represents what actually happens in political marketing.

Product Design –> Market Intelligence –> Communication

If our parties and governments are not actually gathering market intelligence, and then basing their policies on that data, we are not really talking about marketing at all. We are talking about trickery and manipulation; a hidden type of social control embedded in communication that acts like a mirror, reflecting our own images and desires back towards us. We have no reason to vote for another party, or to protest, because there are public communications firms, policy departments, and other experts at work making sure we think we got what we wanted. Real political marketing is therefore something that happens when the only thing that matters is getting elected or re-elected.

The idea that public opinion is not being used to affect policy is not new. Brooks studied the effect of public opinion on policy in Great Britain, the United States, and Canada, and found that in most cases (58% overall, and 61% in Canada) the government does something that goes against public opinion . Judging by what our governments and parties tell us, we would never know that our opinion mattered so little. This is what makes political communication the key.

Nonetheless, there are some scholars who not only accept the activity of political marketing as it is normally understood, but try to find ways to improve the abilities of parties and governments to conduct political marketing. Smith and Hirst, for example, believe that a new approach is needed now that we are entering the “strategic marketing era” in politics. This new approach is “strategic political segmentation”, and it involves segmentation, targeting, and positioning (STP) that “promises better targeted policies towards identified and attractive segments” . With this procedure, the authors are able to “segment” the British “political market” (people) into seven distinctive groupings: “Old Labour”, “Feel Gooders, “Tory Mainstreamers”, “Labour Nationalists”, “Underwhelmed Loyals”, “Light Green Lefties”, and “Champagne Socialists” . Why bother with all this? As the authors explain, this research will “offer an opportunity for each party to communicate their policies more effectively to the electorate” (emphasis added). The key word is “communicate”. While Smith and Hirst come up with better ways to conduct political marketing, they implicitly acknowledge that it is primarily about communicating policy in certain ways, not about making policy itself.

In “The Permanent Campaign: The Integration of Market Research Techniques in Developing Strategies in More Uncertain Political Climates”, Sparrow and Turner want to help political marketers bring together qualitative and quantitative intelligence gathering methods. The article, as they describe it, “attempts to show how such methods can be brought together and how parties can start to build integrated marketing strategies” . Political marketers must learn these methods to cope with the “rapidly changing” or “uncertain” political environment . It is unclear why things are so “uncertain” or “rapidly changing”; regardless, there is no speculation here about the consequences of refining market intelligence gathering methods.

To be critical about political marketing, it is crucial to understand the alternative model proposed here – where the “product” is created, market intelligence follows, and then the “product” is communicated according to market intelligence. What we are left with seems to fit Qualter’s definition of propaganda: “the deliberate attempt by the few to influence the attitudes and behaviour of the many by the manipulation of symbolic communications” . Political marketers are using what they know about us, and about what we want, to make their policies appear and sound all right.
When many academics and the media talk about political marketing, there is a tendency to have already accepted what it is, when it is something completely different. For example, Banker defends political marketing, denying that it is unethical, and asserting that it supplies the electorate with alternative perspectives for understanding political reality . Such an interpretation does not even grasp what political marketing truly is in the first place, and overcomplicates something that is actually quite simple - either our parties and politicians are telling us what they are doing and what they intend to do, or they are not. But too much of the focus is on trivial details like attack ads, election campaign fluff, and party leader image management. All of this confirms, in part, the relevance of Chomsky and Herman’s “propaganda model”, whereby the media and intellectuals ultimately serve the interests of the state, framing their reporting and analysis in a manner supportive of established privilege and limiting debate and discussion accordingly .

If we are going to discuss how Canadian governments and parties communicate with us, it is worthwhile to look at political marketing in Canada. In Canada, the Liberal Party has always been at the forefront of political marketing, and not coincidentally, it also formed the government for most of the 20th century. The party imported George Gallup’s opinion research methods from the U.S. in the 1940’s, and by the 1960’s they were using the newest polling methodologies, advertising strategies, and branding philosophies . The Liberals were also the first Canadian party to establish an in-house advertising agency .

In political marketing literature, the federal Canadian parties are generally divided up in the following way: brokerage parties like the Liberals, Conservatives, and the now-defunct Progressive Conservatives are primarily seen as market-oriented parties, because they try to appeal to as many Canadians with as many different ideologies as possible, and to do this requires significant experience and resources in gathering market intelligence. For example, Marland points out that during the 2000 election campaign, the Liberals’ “daily rolling cross-country opinion polls had an impressive sample of 20 000 respondents” . The Bloc Quebecois, in contrast, is considered a product and sales-oriented party because it has a very specific goal – separation – and they do not intend on finding out your opinion to change that goal, but they are willing to try and convince you that they are right. The New Democratic Party can also be considered a sales or product-oriented party, because similar to the Bloc, there is a basic knowledge of what the NDP is about – social democracy – and the NDP is not willing to compromise on this (which is probably easier to do when you have never formed the government). But they are willing to try and sell their product. This does not mean that the Bloc and NDP do not commission polls or focus groups, only that they do not have such an extensive marketing apparatus and they do not give market intelligence the same consideration in their communications. For example, a pollster hired for the NDP in the 1984 pre-campaign found “operational problems” that inhibited market intelligence, such as a party executive disagreeing with his recommendations, and then the U.S. pollster who replaced him found party staffers analyzing his data .

Therefore, although much of the research on political marketing looks at Great Britain and the U.S., we can be sure that political marketing is doing well in Canada. And it is Canadian political marketing communications we will be concerned with later.

We have established that political marketing is, in a way, not marketing at all, but a type of social control embedded in communication. But how did our parties and governments learn how to communicate in a way that makes people think they are getting what they want and requested – in salespeak?

The following is copyrighted (2007) and partially owned by a university, so it’s free to reproduce in any way, but please leave your e-mail in the comments section below. Footnotes, bibliography, primary research findings, etc. are available by e-mail.

Abstract

Political marketing is a form of social control embedded in communication which leads our politicians to write and speak to us in a different way - in an evolved form of doublespeak known as salespeak, a language that uses the findings of market intelligence to make citizens believe they are getting the type of government they want and requested. Essentially, it is the way our governments and parties speak to us when all that matters is getting elected or re-elected. The use of salespeak is a threat to democracy, but with the right conceptual tools we can learn to ask our politicians the right questions and get real answers.

Chapter 1: Introduction

Modern methods of sale are complicated and often confusing. The Consumer needs to be safeguarded against unscrupulous business practices and unsafe products. More accurate information is needed about the terms and conditions of sale.
- From the Liberal Party Platform of 1968

Most Canadians who bother with the matter would admit that the language of Canadian politicians is quite bad, but it is generally assumed that we cannot do anything about it. Besides, “filler” words, vagueness, jargon, and all of the other abuses of language that go with politics, do not seem that harmful.

The problem with the abuse of language in politics is that it may be happening on purpose. Perhaps our politicians want to write their policies and platforms in a way that lets them do anything – or nothing. This is a problem, of course, because we have elected them to do some things, and not to do others without our consent, or at the very least, without our explicit knowledge.

Recently, Canada’s Conservative government passed regulations allowing U.S. air marshals to carry firearms into Canada. This is something most Canadians would understand and support. But the regulation added that this arrangement would also apply to other situations, including “various cross-border enforcement initiatives between Canada and the United States.” What this actually means is that Canada will be allowing the FBI, ATF, Homeland Security, and other enforcement agencies, including American police, to do something they have never been allowed to do in Canada – carry firearms without a permit. Thomas Walkom, a Toronto Star reporter who caught onto this, called it “a blow to sovereignty” . As he points out, unless these U.S. agents are planning on policing somebody else’s country, they can leave their guns in the U.S. or check them at a border station.

It would have looked much worse (although it would have made a great newspaper headline) if the clause had simply stated, “American agents and police can now carry guns in Canada without a permit”. Instead the government used, “various cross-border enforcement initiatives”.

Walkom calls this “bureaucratese,” others might call it jargon or even doublespeak. We are never quite sure why politicians speak this way, or where they learned to speak this way. But it would be helpful to know if we want to do something about it.

Political marketing may help us understand what is happening to political language. Political marketing is two things: 1) the way political organizations use business marketing concepts and techniques to help them achieve their goals , and 2) a new sub-discipline in political science. It is crucial to note that the latter has paid little or no attention to how the former shapes the way our politicians communicate in policies and party platforms.

How has political marketing changed the way our politicians speak and write to us?

Political marketing has pushed the language of our politicians towards an evolved type of doublespeak known as salespeak, which is:

Communication in the form of policy documents, party platforms, and writing and speech related to these, that uses the findings of market intelligence to make citizens believe they are getting the type of government they want and requested. To write or speak this way requires forms of corporate language that hide inequality while setting out a way for people to do things, without actually requiring them to do those things. It allows those who use it to avoid liability or fake accountability.

Essentially, it is the way our governments and parties speak to us when the only thing that matters is getting elected or re-elected.

To show that salespeak is something we should be concerned about, and that it is also something we can fight against, I will discuss what language is, how it changes, and how language and thought are related. The result will be an idea of language that sees language as a fundamentally political act. As a result, we should not accept that language is beyond our control. Next, though political marketing is usually associated with electioneering, “packaged” or “promotional” politics”, party “branding”, and image management, here I will argue that it is actually a form of social control embedded in communication. Moreover, I will argue that the techniques and methods of this type of communication were copied from the corporate world for specific purposes. Lastly, I will try to refine the concept of salespeak and show how it can be useful, and then attempt to apply the concept to a few of Canada’s current policies and party platforms. The result, I hope, is a concept that helps us make better sense of what our politicians are telling us, or helps us ask the right questions when they have something to hide.

Continued…

I have a few concerns with the article you wrote about Omar Khadr (in the Sunday Sun, July 20th, 2008).

First, lets talk about what you said: Essentially, that the media has had a “drama-queen”, overly sympathetic response to the Omar Khadr Gitmo detention videos. You say we should not feel sorry for him, because the “boy terrorist”, as you call him, threw a grenade that allegedly killed a US Army medic, Sgt. Christopher Speer. And the reason he broke down and cried is because he thought the Canadian agents were there to take him back to Canada, but when the agents started asking him “the tough questions”… “he knew the jig was up, and that there was no going home”. Moreover, if Omar had killed a Canadian soldier we would not feel sorry for him.

I think you have made a decent effort to present a different point of view about these videos. The problem is, anybody who ascribes to this point of view has to conveniently forget some important facts.

1) Charges against Omar were dropped in 04 June 2007 because he could not be deemed an “unlawful” enemy combatant by the US’s war crimes tribunal. He has not been charged since.
2) Omar has not been convicted of any crime.
3) There is another side to the story. Omar’s defence team argues there is corroborating evidence, including evidence submitted by a ballistics expert, to suggest Sgt. Speer was killed by friendly fire – by an American grenade.

I am not saying I believe either story. What I am saying is that you cannot deride Canadians for feeling sorry for somebody who has been held for 6 years, without being charged, without being convicted, and when there has been no real effort of repatriation by the Canadian government. In Canada we have never let somebody rot in a jail cell for 6 years without even charging them.

And what makes him a “terrorist”? If he was out there killing American soldiers, then he, even as described by his American prosecutors, is an “enemy combatant”. He did not explode himself in a crowd of civilians or detonate a truck-bomb in a marketplace.

You ask us “if this Canadian poster boy terrorist had killed (a Canadian soldier), would there be the same outrage being expressed today over his treatment in detention?”

The question is designed to appeal to our patriotism, our respect for Canadian soldiers, our sentiment for those who have died there. But the question is actually invalid. Think about it: 1) We don’t know that Omar killed anybody – again, he hasn’t even been charged, let alone convicted. 2) If a Canadian citizen like Omar Khadr was accused of killing a Canadian soldier, he certainly would not end up at Guantanamo. He would be shipped back to Canada and would go through due process. He would be tried under the Young Offenders Act. He would have evidence presented against him – and for him. He would retain his rights under Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms (ie: he would be given rights to counsel before any interrogation - shamefully, something our own agents did not do when they interrogated Omar). He would not sit in a detention cell for 6 years. He would not ever be awoken every three hours and moved to a different location – a sleep deprivation technique designed to induce compliance to interrogation. He would be able to communicate with his family.

Your question is flawed, intentionally I think. You end your editorial by reminding us that “Pte Colin Wilmot, by the way, was buried on Wednesday in his home town of Fredericton”. You are using the death of one of our boys to promote the view that Khadr deserves what he is getting; you are using a dead Canadian soldier as a tool to advance a flimsy argument. The “jig” is up.

Sincerely, but with apologies to your mighty moustache,

Mercuda

My fiance attended a bridal show about a month back, and she recently got a call from “Royal Prestige”, saying that we’d won a free trip, and all we had to do was go to a little cookware show to redeem our prize.

You may have seen Royal Prestige showcased on the Price is Right, or on other game shows. It’s a very exclusive product, sold only to select groups, like, um, game show contestants and… engaged couples.

We made a deal to not buy anything, take our free trip coupon, and go home.

But the sales pitch was good. Really good. They cooked us up some samples of chicken and veggies in their cookware and it was tasty.
I also had a fantastic time learning about how healthy it was to cook with Royal Prestige cookware, and how unhealthy or unsafe it was to cook with nearly anything else, ie: Teflon, aluminium, steel, etc. Much of what they said was true, or half-true (half-lie), especially when it came to Teflon, which is a shit product that probably kills more people than we know.

The salesperson was smooth, but he tended to ask really obvious questions to get the “crowd” (5 engaged couples) involved. For example, he would ask, “Anybody here ever burn their food?” And “Anybody here ever have dessert?” And I was incredulous as the chick next to me enthusiastically responded “Mm-hmm!”
Yeah, no shit. Everybody at some point in their lives has had dessert.

The pot sets were priced anywhere between $2300 and $4000. And if you bought one of them, they threw in other sets for free, and included tropical cruises and trips to all-inclusive resorts.

When the sales pitch was over I went to ask the sales person a question, and our conversation began with my asking whether the product was available in stores (which it wasn’t), and ended up going on like this:

Me – “So this is my understanding of the situation: You sell a product that cooks food in a way that is healthier, and I know it’s true that healthy eating can change your life, and it’s good for kids, and all that good stuff…”

Him – (Speaking to my fiance) “This is a smart guy”.

Me – “And other cooking products, as you say, are bad for your health because you’re either cooking with materials that themselves cause cancer or heart disease, or you have to use oils and things that are full of fat and bad for your health”.

Him – (Attempting to flatter me by mumbling something about my intelligence again)

Me – “So I guess my question is: Since your company knows all of this, wouldn’t it make more sense to make the product accessible and affordable by selling it in stores, so the public can stop buying things that give them cancer and heart disease?”

[*note – To his credit, he put up a good defence, but it was all in salesmanese, so it sounded to me like what it might sound like if you strangled a loon.]

Him – “Well, we do sell it through distributors, which gives us more one-on-one contact with our customers, and allows us to give demonstrations and share expert advice.”

Me – “But if people are dying of cancer and heart disease it would be socially irresponsible for a company to hold back a superior product that will benefit people.”

Him – “Well, we just feel that it’s better to have experts selling the product, and as you can see it’s a fine product. But at this price, it tends to throw people off, so we like to have that one-on-one contact. And, you know, putting our product in a store like Zellers would demean the product.”

Me – “Demeaning the product is a small price to pay for saving people’s lives”.

And at this point I don’t know where the conversation went because I was too busy congratulating myself for slam-dunking that fool.

I couldn’t believe he thought a product could be “demeaned”. Only a human being can be “demeaned”, and they’re especially demeaned when you place their lives below the value of a pot set.

Later on, while the girl and I were still perusing the products, she exclaimed “For the price of one of these pot sets, you can feed a village in Africa for months!”
The salesperson overheard her.

It wasn’t long before the salesperson gathered the two of us up, and brought us into another room.

He began, “So, are you interested in any of our packages?”

We gave him a frank “No.”

“Well then…” He handed us our free three day trip, and under the supervision of one of his homely lady helpers, hustled us out the side door of the convention hall.

The fiancé and I looked at each other for a second, and then realized…We’d been kicked out!

Our expulsion from the premises was a very deliberate thing. The sales pitch / performance was so well honed it couldn’t have been otherwise. They probably feared we’d start talking to the other couples, and spread our pinko-commie views until they were overflowing in the room; Overflowing much the same way we were told our miscellaneous aluminium, Teflon, and steel pots and pans, in our “all-Canadian” pot sets, overflow in our cupboards like a vermin in our kitchen.

It took the salesperson two minutes to clear us from that convention hall, and yet, when we waited outside for an extra ten to fifteen minutes, not one other couple came out of the building. They were all inside spending thousands of dollars (minus the idiot-stick girl who answered the obvious questions, whom we saw running out to her car, probably to get her credit card), patsies of a company that preys on one of the most vulnerable demographics – engaged couples. As it is, engaged couples are dropping thousands of dollars at a time for a wedding, so what’s another two grand for a bunch of fucking pots that conveniently come with a honeymoon, right?

Buy some steel pots. Royal Prestige sucks.

Links detailing their misdeeds and scandals:

Misdeed #1

Misdeed #2

Misdeed #3

CSCN - Air Canada Ad campaign causes excitement among communists.

Air Canada caused a few moments of excitement among Canadian communists yesterday with their new “It’s a revolution!” ad campaign. Moments after the first commercials aired, communists took to the streets and began attacking government buildings, seizing private property, and attacking Bay Street yuppies. It was a matter of hours before police could round up the wannabe revolutionaries, throw them in jail, and clear up the situation.

Toronto’s Chief of Police, Douchy McDouchebag explained, “It turns out Air Canada’s promotion is not a revolution after all, but instead offers a “spring sample pass” of flight tickets.” He added, “With 4 one-way flight credits, you can travel until June 11, 2006, no matter where you live in Canada or where you fly to in North America - at a great price!”

Meanwhile, Smelly McSmellerton, leader of the Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada, attempted to quell the revolutionary anger of his comrades. “I implore you all to calm down and stay in your homes and watch C.S.I. It’s just a commercial. It is not the revolution”.

Sixteen Bay Street yuppies were killed in the the violence.

www.cbc.ca is running this article entitled “Fewer women tapped for Harper cabinet“.

Apparently the Conservative government won’t have many women “tapped” as cabinet ministers.

Except for this chick. She’s getting tapped for obvious reasons.

This chick, however, is not getting tapped… again, for obvious reasons…