'Mugwump' — What Politicians' Use Of Language Can Teach Online Retail Marketers

By Charles Scherer — IMRG deputy editor

When it comes to language in online retail marketing, any copywriter will tell you that wording matters enormously. I should know — I used to be one, and I said the same. And they don’t just say that because their livelihood depends on it.

It’s well demonstrated that language affects your conversion and click-through rate, and ultimately your marketing ROI.

It’s incredibly difficult to predict the result. That’s marketing for you. While there’s a certain science to language in marketing, it still has elements of a mysterious art. We can test and measure the most effective words in a CTA button, but when it comes to trying to capture the imagination, it’s hard to tell what is so ridiculous it just might work, and what is just ridiculous.

Going viral

Last month, the Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson wondered whether the electorate considers Jeremy Corbyn to be a hopeless, generally harmless “mutton-headed old mugwump.” His point was that Corbyn is actually far from being useless, and the prospect of Corbyn as Prime Minister should be considered as a danger to Britain’s security. Whatever his intention, all the public and media really cared about was the word ‘mugwump’.

There was much discussion about what it meant, and which of the many meanings Johnson intended.

One Mugwump: an alien creature from William S. Burroughs’s ‘Naked Lunch’

Back in 2012, Commons backbencher Jacob Rees-Mogg set the record for the longest word in Hansard with “floccinaucinihilipilification”. His parliamentary speech was about judges in the European Court of Justice having voted to increase their own pay, but the story wasn’t that. The word was what people shared.

In advertising, marketers rejoice when a campaign goes viral. It’s incredibly hard to do on purpose, and some say it’s not even worth trying to do. I sympathise to some extent.

There’s no accounting for what captures the public imagination. This fourteen year old girl has over eight million Instagram followers, and is now in a position to charge £32,000 for a public appearance, after having uttered six words on the US talk show ‘Dr Phil’. Those six words were “Catch me outside, how about that?”

Those who try too hard often find their efforts were all for nought. It’s wiser to focus on creating good content and accept that when it goes live, whatever happens happens.

But it looks like two old-Etonians can achieve without much exertion what Brick Lane hipsters spend days of brainstorming to conceive. Both Tories’ choice of words went viral. The question is, did their diction help or hinder?

Distraction

Rees-Mogg implied that ‘floccinaucinihilipilification’ was the word that happened to come to mind while he was addressing the House, but that he was glad of it for having drawn attention to his point.

Johnson is, of course, known for his bloviating rambles and uncensored outbursts. His phrasing was (presumably) calculated to amplify the reach of his attack.

The question is, were their messages better off for having been delivered with those words? Well, more people heard them than they otherwise would have done, so job done, perhaps. But consider that a vast proportion of the audience only heard the story through reports of the word choice.

The headlines were ‘What is a Mugwump?’ and ‘MP uses 29 Letter Word in Parliament’. The attention was on the vocabulary, not the sentiment. And I’ll wager that a majority of those who read or heard the story would struggle later to identify the context of the utterance.

Donald Trump’s proclamations and tweets are shared and reported far more for their sentiment than for their vocabulary. That’s not just because the content tends to be inflammatory. It’s because it's been said that his political expressions tend to contain only the vocabulary of a 13-year-old, and the choice of words is rarely remarkable in itself.

And I don’t write that as an insult. Simplicity of expression is advisable in public speaking. Whether or not Trump is calculating in his diction, he delivers his messages in a vernacular that anyone can comprehend.

To communicate a message, keep the delivery straightforward. The paparazzi shouldn’t have more interest in the car than in the passenger, just as the audience shouldn’t find the wording of a message more interesting than the message itself.

When to get extravagant

A funny word, an unusual term, or an odd sentence can be the linguistic equivalent of a big publicity stunt. If you’re interested in general brand-building or awareness-raising, the tactical placement of an arresting term can have as much impact as a skydive from the Stratosphere.

Snickers made up words like ‘Snaxi’ and ‘Snacklish’ to raise awareness of their product, and it worked.

Unusual and new words stick in the mind because humans have a powerful primordial tendency to notice the different and unusual, and we also love novelty.

Advertisers can surprise and delight the public with funny, clever, or new words. They’ll stick in the mind, and ideally bring the brand name along for the ride.

So back to Boris Johnson. Look again at his ‘Mugwump’ moment, or the time he called the London Assembly “great supine protoplasmic invertebrate jellies”. Johnson is a politician fond of florid language, and who is able to get away with utterances that would be career-ending for most. And every one of his headline escapades builds and maintains the ‘brand’.

Conclusion

Choosing language in online retail marketing a matter of picking the right tool for what you plan to achieve. So bear these in mind when preparing copy on your homepage, ads, or emails:

If you have something specific to communicate, don’t let the language upstage the message. Funny and unusual words can attract attention, but they tend to keep it to themselves.
When you haven’t got anything particular to say, but you want to raise brand awareness, a novel choice of words will stick in people’s minds, and your brand name will tag along.

And – perhaps most importantly of all – don’t necessarily trust fun phrasing by politicians.