“This is a unique opportunity to purchase a superb property in a sought-after location.”
Any estate agent

We should have sympathy with anyone (even estate agents) faced with the task of perpetually having to say the same things in different ways, or dress up dull information. After all, no-one is going to want “just another chance to purchase a dreadful house in a blighted suburb.”

Estate agents are fortunate, though: the demand for property is typically such that house buyers will grudgingly put up with terrible writing. Most of us are skilled at deciphering ‘estate agent-ese’ when determining whether we should take an interest.

Few businesses have the luxury of such demand, yet as business readers, we still have to decipher a welter of subjective language surrounding products: ‘this best-in-class solution offers an unparalleled range of options for leading-edge companies’. Which, translated, means ‘this is a product with some features’.

After a while, we tire of doing this and simply ignore the offending sentence, paragraph or even the entire document. Focusing on the facts — in marketing copy as in journalism — is the best way to make sure your writing gets read.