Internet Boasting Doesn’t Equal Quality

There are a million ways to laugh boasting off the stage.

I’ve written many times about all the arrogance and sheer unsupportable hyperbole in news releases … by people who ought to know better.

This recent piece from the San Francisco Chronicle says it very well. It deserves a careful read by the people who foisted these headlines on us this morning:

• Constellation Brands Leads Wine Marketing Innovation with Mobile App Program for Holidays

Really? How is marketing innovation defined? Who’s number two? Data needed.

• New Mobile App Becomes Market Share Leader for American Wineries and Wine Trails

Leading whom? Prove it or be quiet. Who was the leader?

The market — and independent, non-self-interested third parties — are the only ones who have any credibility at all to pronounce something as revolutionary, market leading.

Anybody associated with the product just looks silly and worthy only of a biting Conan or Saturday Night Life satire. The people and companies behind these ridiculous boasts are not evil or incompetent. They are simply good people who let their own good judgment and sense of taste lapse so that they appear as buffoons and braggarts.

Go back and give the Chronicle piece a read if you’re tempted to use hype and hyperbole.