Buzzword trifecta!

Elevate that passionate journey, baby.

It’s pretty common to see one or even two of the buzzwords du jour in marketing copy, but three? That’s worth writing about. So when I saw the full-page ad from Authors Tranquility Press in the January 28 issue of the New York Times Book Review and realized it gave me a full bingo card, I had to pause in recognition, if not celebration.

Sure, I could write this newsletter about the “Authors Tranquility Press” name, which made me giggle. (It’s a self-publishing platform. Peace be unto them.) Instead, I want to tell you what made my eyes go BAZOINGGG like a cartoon character:

“Your Story, Our Passion: Elevate Your Book’s Journey with Authors Tranquility Press.”

That’s the headline at the top of the page, and there they were, the Big Three marketing buzzwords: Elevate. Passion. Journey. Bingo! And also sad-face emoji, because I’ve been publicly deploring the Big Three for many years.

I’ve written about corporate “passion” so many times that I gave it its own category tag in my old blog. Here’s the first post, from 2006: “Our Passion Is Your Problem.” (It includes a poem!) Here’s one from 2009, about meaningless “passion” in corporate slogans. Here’s a guest post I wrote for Duets Blog about the P-word. I finally gave it a rest with a 2018 post, “Get a Room!”

(Speaking of “Get a room!”, the Courtyard Marriott hotel in downtown Oakland is high on the P-word, too. It’s bad enough when a publisher drips passion, but from a hotel it sounds suspiciously like “Conduct Your Next Extramarital Affair in One of Our Extremely Discreet Rooms, Wink-Wink, Nudge-Nudge.”)

“Pursue your Passion”—really? P.S. The Y in “your” should be capitalized.

Here is the thing, marketers and advertisers. (I’m going to get a little shouty so that the message is completely clear.)

Your
passion
doesn’t
matter

(except to your lover)

What do we care about? What you can do for us. That’s it.

“Elevate” is a newer addition to the buzzword-bingo card, but it’s made up for its recency with ubiquity. Fashion writers adore “elevated” as a modifier; they’re especially fond of “elevated basics” (plain clothes at higher prices). You can (must!) elevate your style, your sleep (with an Elevate brand mattress), your art, your team, your entire existence. When I wrote about “elevated” in March 2023, I traced the, um, passion for “elevate” to Utah’s 2006 “Life Elevated” ad campaign. Now I just wonder whether everyone is high.

Then there’s journey, which everyone is on, all the time. You’re not counting calories, you’re on a weight-loss journey. You’re not working out, you’re on a fitness journey. Expecting a baby? Welcome to your pregnancy journey. As I wrote last August in “Going Somewhere?”:

A religious awakening is a faith journey. A career in cheerleading is a cheer journey. (There even are cheer journals to document the cheer journey.) Software developers talk about the user journey; salespeople refer to the customer journey from awareness to engagement to purchase.

Journeys are often “incredible” or “amazing” and sometimes “their own reward,” and in the corporate world failure is never “the end of the journey.”

There’s a word for these buzzwords: cliché. What does it portend when a book publisher is leaning on them? Nothing good about the books being published, I’m sorry to say. Tranquility Press? More like Platitude Productions.