Innovative and Imaginative | Words That Work: It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear

Successful Marketing Tools. | Words That Work: It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear | Frank I. Luntz

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	• Words That Work: It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear Frank I. Luntz Hyperion, 2008 - 368 pages average customer review:based on 28 reviews view larger image
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Words that work it's not what you say it's what people hear

My husband and I love this book. We sorta have an infatuation with words and how people misuse them. Just seems to catch our ear. This book is enjoyable for anyone to read. Rita Cornelius

Innovative and Imaginative

The author is one of the best political analysts/pollsters in the business. His approach is truly innovative and groundbreaking. This book, "Words That Work," gives away some of his secrets. The bottom line is that "its not what you say, its what people hear." The author takes that thesis and demonstrates its effectiveness in business, politics, social settings, and more. Words have a tone or a connotation that is often interpreted differently by the user and the hearer. This leads to breakdown in communication. The principles in the book are valuable for even the average person, but will be more so for those in business of politics. Worth the read.

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Successful Marketing Tools.

For those who don't know, Frank Luntz is the Oxford-educated pollster and consultant for the Republican party. He declaims that he may be a bit "right of center" but has avoided promoting any political party or its agenda in his book.

In the first paragraph of the first chapter, he proves that President Obama's 2008 speech -- "Don't tell me that words don't matter. 'I have a dream' -- just words?...." -- was plagiarized.

Then, still on the first page of the first chapter, he goes on to call Barack Obama "the Pied Piper of hope, opportunity, and change." "Millions of Americans whistled his tune right to the ballot box."

Speaking of words, I'd call this "mockery."

Speaking of Luntz's declared intention to avoid endorsing or criticizing any particular political party or agenda, I'd call this "hypocrisy."

He writes: "...there is much to be gained by being upbeat and optimistic. When you trash the opposition, you simultaneously demean yourself. The best warrior is a happy warrior. Accentuate the positive ... eliminate the negative. Negative definitely works, but a solid positive message will triumph over negativity."

According to his own judgment he demeaned himself one week ago, as this is being written, when the financial reform bill was about to come up for discussion in Congress. The bill was designed, in part, to find a more efficient way to dissolve a corporation AFTER it goes into bankruptcy. Luntz's memo to the Republican party made the usual recommendations regarding the use of short, memorable phrases in rebutting the Democrat's plans. One suggested phrase, the term "endless bailouts" was lifted directly from Luntz's memo and used in Mitch McConnell's objections on the floor of the Senate.

That's not only demeaning yourself (and your clients), it's also known as "lying", since the bill was intended to do exactly the opposite of what McConnell claimed.

That's not to vitiate the general points that Luntz makes in his book or to argue that the techniques he lists are in any way unworkable. And I agree entirely with some of the assumptions behind those points and those lists -- yes, the American people are fat, dumb, and unhappy. Or, as another observer of the public scene, H. L. Mencken put it, "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public."

Conservatives were extremely perceptive in picking up and using Frank Luntz. He's a genius as marketing, and a compelling and unflappable presence in public appearances. Oh, how the opposition needs someone with his brand of moral nihilism to build up their phraseology. One imagines what the world would look like if he were selling Democratic snake oil instead of Republican.

The signs on the Interstate highways that now read something like "Paid for by the National Highway Recovery and Reconstruction Act," followed by a lot of small print that can't be read at highway speed are placed at ten or twenty mile intervals.

Under Luntz, the traveler would see them every two miles and they would read simply, "Paid For By the Jobs Stimulus Bill" and signed, "President Barack Obama." Period -- and in big print.

Under Luntz, there would have been no contentious murk surrounding the health-care reform bill. It would have been described by its advocates (over and over and over) as "MEDICARE FOR EVERYBODY."

As I say, though, this doesn't detract from the author's expertise at turning commercial and political messages into propaganda. He's extremely good at what he does. The book is well-written, uses simple words, usually uses the first person singular, and is easy to read and understand, obviously written for an intelligent and literate audience but not for a bunch of eggheads. The examples are well chosen to illustrate the points that he's making and many, or even most of them, are non-political.

But even in these value-neutral passages, there's an obvious self-promotion going on that's -- maybe not "unnecessary", but unworthy of anyone with a D.Phil. from Oxford. The author is called "Dr. Frank Luntz" on the cover and in the blurbs. I doubt that when Rachel Maddow writes a book she'll be "Dr. Rachel Maddow" although she has the same degree from the same university. His name or some other self-referential statement seems to pop up on every other page. We run into things like "Luntz's Lists" and claims for the credit of inventing the 1994 "Contract with America." (Little mention of where that led us.)

It's possible to admire an author and much of what he's written without endorsing his political views or his reckless philosophy of duping the ignorant public. There is a lot of precedent. Most people -- those who can shake off the intent behind it -- find Leni Riefenstahl's documentary film, "Triumph of the Will," to be an awesome cinematic achievement despite its glorification of the Nazi movement. And we might mention "Battleship Potemkin", which satisfactorily explains why the Russian revolution was so necessary.

Well, in the interest of full disclosure, I'm only half-way through the book, though I don't expect any radical change in the author's posture. I'm learning a lot from it, and, as I say, I agree with much of it. I only wish the author would do some additional reading on his own, starting with the chapter in Chairman Mao's Little Red Book called, "On Enlightened Self Criticism."

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A month after reading it, it's still growing on me.

For a book about the power of words, this certainly is a dull read. I slogged my way through it, always hoping it would get better. There's a lot of tedious name-dropping and summing up of old advertising and political campaigns. My initial review would have given 2 stars.

But.

In the intervening weeks since finishing the book, I have had a couple of discussions in which I consciously used Luntz's "say this not that" rules. And do you know what? I was more persuasive doing it his way.

So maybe over the course of time, this will become a four-star selection for me, as I change the way I communicate. We shall see.

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