• Twitter
  • Linkedin
  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • Google
  • Email
Sensei MarketingSensei MarketingSensei MarketingSensei Marketing
  • Home
  • About
  • Contact

Does Poor Grammar Affect a Business’s Bottom-Line?

By Sam Fiorella | Customer Acquisition | 1 comment | 14 May, 2014 | 0

No Parking

Memes about the use of poor grammar seem to be a staple of social media fodder, especially on social networking sites like Facebook. An even bigger trend in digital communications might be the calling out of people and brands for typos and poor grammar in status updates, blog posts, or marketing materials.

The Internet may be making a profession for the self-appointed grammar police, but such mistakes have always been seen in marketing and advertising. Remember the McDonald’s campaign that promoted its new “Anus Burger?”

A more recent example comes from the UK where Albert Gifford became a social media darling after calling out a syntax error in a product claim that appeared on a carton of Tesco orange juice; the slogan claimed the juice is “most tastiest.”

Does Poor Grammar Affect a Business’s Bottom Line?

While, as in the McDonald’s case above, grammar mistakes are embarrassing, do they negatively affect the bottom line of businesses? I’d have bet that most businesses (especially larger, popular brands like McDonald’s) would shrug off such mistakes and not be any worse for wear. Yet, it seems the social media spotlight might be shining a little stronger light on the issue than I thought.

Global Lingo polled UK residents, asking if their purchase decisions would be negatively affected if they noticed grammar errors in the brand’s online communications.  Of those surveyed, 59 percent reported that they would avoid doing business with a company that’s made such errors. Those errors and typos are abundant today across traditional and digital channels and are committed by individuals and businesses alike. Victoria’s Secret misused an apostrophe in its campaign that claimed, “You’ve never seen body’s like this!”  Barak Obama’s presidential election campaign goofed in an online banner ad that stated, “You’ve come along way.”  And let’s not forget the priceless claim by the Days Inn hotel chain, which offered “Free Wife” instead of “Free WiFi.”

Time to Loosen Grammar Rules?

Is the Internet to blame for declining attention to formal grammar? There’s a growing group of people calling for a loosening of traditional grammar rules. In fact, there has been a movement among English teachers to adopt descriptive or transformational grammar, which matches rules to the purpose of the user. They claim that such theories are more flexible, reflecting actual usage and self-expression over “correct” structures, which, in turn, provide more meaningful and honest communication in our modern world. (Ms. Petroni, my dictatorial high school English teacher, would not only disagree with this practice, she’d snap a ruler over my hand for even referencing it. My hand hurts just thinking about it.)

MisspellenheimThere’s no question that individuals are becoming more lax in their adherence to grammar rules and also their acceptance of poor use of grammar by others (well, except for the special task force assigned to monitor my every written word online (ahem…Alison King, Gini Dietrich, and Linda Bernstein)).  The sheer volume of informal conversations we have over social networks has a lot to do with this shift.

Texting has created an entirely new language where acronyms have transformed into official words. Twitter is single-handedly re-introducing the lost art of shorthand by forcing us to share ideas in fewer than 140 characters, again creating commonly accepted words that were once considered abbreviations.

Auto-correct, arguably the worst thing to happen to the use of proper grammar, has created a culture of acceptance for all forms of typographical errors. We know the author didn’t intend to write certain words when we see them out of place and we attribute the errors to the fast-paced nature of social discourse coupled with tiny keyboards and fat fingers. We’re OK with it. We laugh at it. We create memes to celebrate the hilarity of it all.

Sensei Debates

The Global Lingo survey suggests that businesses which follow pop culture trends and allow/accept improper grammar, or simply don’t proof their online communications well enough, will feel the consequences in their pocketbooks.  “The fact that such a high percentage wouldn’t trust a company with poor spelling or grammar just goes to show crucial it is that businesses make the most of every opportunity, especially in these tough economic times,” says Richard Michie, marketing and technology director at Global Lingo.

Having been taught proper grammar in the early 1980s – pre-Internet and digital short-hand – I’d consider the poor use of grammar in online communications a blemish on the brand, a sign that it’s not very professional. It’s why I employ an editor to review my posts, which are often riddled with typos due to my inability to proofread. However, would reading poor grammar or typos in a brand’s online communications stop me from purchasing a product from that company? Probably not.

I’m also curious if the next generation, weaned on digital short-hand, takes this issue as seriously as the grammar police who’ve made it a pastime – if not a living – to embarrass those who make such mistakes?

Where do you stand on this topic? The Global Lingo study suggests that almost 80% of Britons pay close attention to the quality of spelling and grammar used by businesses.  Is this purely a UK phenomenon? Does it translate into lost business or is a new acceptance of “Internet grammar” on the horizon?

Sam Fiorella
Feed Your Community, Not Your Ego

Customer Acquisition, Customer Experience

Sam Fiorella

Sam Fiorella is a Partner here at Sensei Marketing, a consulting and technology firm focused on aiding global companies grow their business value through improved customer experiences. Professionally, Sam has also co-authored: Influence Marketing: How To Create, Manage and Measure Brand Advocates and is a Professor of Marketing at Seneca College and an Adjunct Professor at Rutgers Center for Management Development. Sam is also the co-founder of YellowIsForHello, a not-for-profit corporation that seeks to decrease the rate of suicide among students through peer-to-peer connections.

More posts by Sam Fiorella

Related Post

  • Technology and Business Intelligence – Not Always Good Partners

    By Sam Fiorella | 2 comments

    There’s no question that the Internet, social media, and digital technologies have changed the business landscape and the manner in which it operates. From the way business communicates with – and advertises to – consumersRead more

  • The Flip Side of Social Media: Servicing Customer Expectations

    By Sam Fiorella | 2 comments

    Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Quora, LinkedIn….businesses are pushing harder and harder at engaging customers across multiple digital channels and social networks, each experiencing varied levels of success. It’s that success that I wish toRead more

  • Does Your Business Need A Personality to Succeed Online?

    By Sam Fiorella | 2 comments

    A new report by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) highlights the importance of Display Rising Stars ads – a collection of six units that include the Billboard, Filmstrip, and Pushdown – “in giving more personalityRead more

  • 360 Degree Retailing: Reassessing Brick and Mortar Stores

    By Sam Fiorella | Comments are Closed

    There’s no doubt that that Internet has changed the business of retailing. Thanks to consumers’ proclivity for pre-purchase research and the availability of online commerce, retail growth is no longer dependent on brick and mortarRead more

  • The Grand Paradox of Social Communications

    By Sam Fiorella | Comments are Closed

    You cannot read a marketing or social media blog today without stumbling across the advice: “humanize your brand.”  The advice is certainly not a new concept to marketing, but one that has had new importanceRead more

  • Tim September 3, 2021 at 4:54 am

    hehe, I like how you hyphenated “bottom line” in the title then didn’t hyphenate it later on.

SOLUTIONS

BONDAI
BONDAI Services
Rewards & Loyalty Program
BONDAI Partner Program
BONDAI Reseller Program
Gift My Client

COMPANY

About Us
Contact Us
Careers
Case Studies
Blog
Book a Demo

CONTACT

Sensei Marketing Inc.
30 Wellington St. West
Suite 500
Toronto ON
Canada M5L 1E2
416-484-1400

  • Home
  • About
  • Contact
Sensei Marketing