Abstract nominalisation never stops

I discovered recently that the official slogan of the British Olympic team (or ‘Team GB’) is ‘Better never stops’. It’s a strange slogan. Partly because, in the context of the Olympics, ‘better’ isn’t a very satisfactory aspiration – why not go for ‘best’? But mainly because it’s another example of the fashion for abstract nominalisation in brand lines.

I call it abstract nominalisation because I can’t find a better term for it.* It’s the practice of taking an adjective or adverb (‘better’) and turning it into a noun denoting an abstract, intangible quality. Other examples include Sky’s ‘Believe in better’, BUPA’s ‘Helping you find healthy’ and Adidas’ ‘Impossible is nothing’.

According to this post by Nancy Friedman, there are plenty of examples on the other side of the Atlantic, including the bizarre ‘The Do Inside’ by Lenovo and ‘Enjoy the Go’ by Charmin. In those cases, it’s verbs that are being turned into nouns, but the effect is similar.

Inevitably, the word ‘brand’ has come in for the same treatment – I notice Wolff Olins has long been talking about ‘brand’ as an abstract concept. This is a slightly different case, as ‘brand’ is commonly used as a noun. But it’s usually with a definite or indefinite article to refer to a particular brand, rather than Brand as an abstract entity.

While looking into this, I came across a post by copywriter Tom Albrighton talking about the disruptive effect of this type of usage. It’s deliberately intended to trip you up and make you take notice. If BUPA’s line read ‘Helping you be healthy’, it would mean the same thing, but wash straight over you. ‘Helping you find healthy’ strikes you as odd, which is at least a reaction. As Tom suggests, it’s debatable whether being deliberately obtuse is a good brand strategy in the long term, but it’s a strategy of sorts.

However, there are many ways to ‘disrupt’ language in order to get attention. What interests me is why many brands are choosing to be disruptive in this particular way – by turning an adjective into an abstract noun. My theory is that it’s the inevitable linguistic outcome of two competing urges among brand strategists.

The first is what copywriter Mike Reed describes as a ‘portentous straining for a big idea/essence’. A common gambit in any branding brainstorm is to elevate a product offering to the most abstract possible level. If you make chocolate, then you’re making something people enjoy. And if they’re enjoying it, that means they’re happier. So the more chocolate you make, the happier people are. So you’re not really making chocolate, you’re making joy. So Cadbury is no longer about chocolate, it’s about joy.

You can go through the same thought process with any brand. Sky may be a broadcaster, but is that all they are? Isn’t it about broadcasting in a better way? Making people’s lives better? Continually improving things? So they’re not specialists in broadcasting, they’re specialists in ‘Better’.

There is some merit to this way of thinking. It’s a more sophisticated form of the old sales maxim about selling the sizzle, not the sausage. Every brand should be aware of the ultimate emotional benefit it offers and its bigger purpose in the scheme of things. But the obvious danger is that, whatever the nuts and bolts of a particular brand, once you start that process of abstraction, you’re always going to end up at something impossibly big and generic – ‘better’, ‘healthy’, ‘happy’ and so on.

Having arrived at that big, generic territory, you’re then faced with the problem of turning it into a positioning line that sounds differentiated and tangible. Which is where the two competing urges come in. How can you be simultaneously generic and differentiated, abstract and tangible? The answer is to turn an adjective into a noun. It’s a verbal trick that allows you to couch a generic thought in language that, even while it remains generic, at least has the feel of something more distinctive. And it sort of works. When you hear new language, your subconscious instinct is to feel there must be a new thought behind it.

I don’t think the people behind these lines are doing it quite that consciously or cynically – it’s more that this particular strain of brand thinking inevitably leads you to that logical impasse where something has to give. It’s like two tectonic plates rubbing up against each other, and eventually rupturing the language to form a new usage.

That’s my theory anyway. I’m sharing it because of a conversation on Twitter involving @reedwords, @acejet170, @hollybrocks, @davidthedesigna, @gray, @bull, @daninfragments, @neilbaker, @tomcopy, @linguabrand, @lateofnewmills and others, which ended with me promising to write at more length about it.

I hope you’ve enjoyed it, because this blog is ultimately about making people feel more informed and content – hence our new strapline: Blogging You To Happy^TM.

* Linguists’ corner footnote
Enquiries on Twitter have led to a number of suggestions. ‘Nominalisation’ is the practice of turning a verb or adjective into a noun, so certainly applies here. ‘Nouning’ or ‘nounification’ are more conversational versions of the same thing.

However, those terms don’t quite seem to cover what’s happening in ‘Better never stops’ and ‘Believe in better’. Nominalisation of adjectives happens all the time in language – we talk about supporting ‘the reds’, for example. But this is an unconventional type of nominalisation that feels like it needs an extra or alternative descriptor. There's something about the fact that it involves an abstract usage – not just 'the better' of two options, but 'Better' as an entity. The closest parallel is the way we talk about believing in 'good' and 'evil', which are nominalised adjectives, but so common that they don't strike us as odd any more.

Others have suggested ‘modifying adjective for an elliptical noun’ and ‘hanging comparative’ – in other words, ‘better’ is essentially still acting as an adjective for a missing noun that isn’t explicitly there, but which we read in anyway. For example, when we say ‘Of the two runners, the faster won’, ‘faster’ is still acting as an adjective for a missing 'runner’ that we read in anyway. So, with ‘Believe in better’ it’s really ‘Believe in better [things]’. But I’m not sure about this – especially when it comes to ‘Better never stops’ – what would be the notional missing noun there? It seems to me what it really means is ‘Better [as a state of mind in which one permanently strives to improve] never stops [by its nature].’

There are also the terms ‘reification’ and ‘hypostatisation’, which refer to the practice of treating an abstract concept as though it were real – which is certainly the case with ‘Helping you find healthy’. Maybe we’re dealing with a hypostatised abstract nominalisation.

I haven't fully understood what I'm writing for at least the last four paragraphs.

Comments

[Tom Albrighton]

Excellent, very thoughtful post and a great survey of this phenomenon.

You asked why it happens. One simple reason is fashion. Copywriters and CDs hang out, they look at each other's work, they want to be on trend. Conventions appear, take hold and are reinforced by exposure.

A while ago, I wrote about 'that's why':

http://www.abccopywriting.com/blog/2011/05/16/copywriting-for-empathy/

Over one year on, that trend is still going strong. Once you're aware of it, you'll sometimes notice two or three TV ads in a single break using the device.

Although it's a bit of a grunty, prosaic attitude, I think there's something to be said for not writing things that can't be said out loud. Not in the context of a Cannes acceptance speech or a client meeting, but to the audience you're actually addressing.

Would a Bupa rep ever use 'help you find healthy' in their spiel? I suggest not. This sort of writing is very anchored to the page or the ad script. It can't really live outside the 'branding' ecosystem.

By contrast, one can easily imagine a line like 'I'm lovin' it' being jokingly deployed by McDonald's staff, or indeed their customers. That can only strengthen the appeal of the brand. All the strongest lines have the ability to slot into normal discourse, or are drawn from it (Ronseal etc).

Some might argue that's a recipe for very concrete, unpoetic, colloquial lines. But I don't find the sort of line you're discussing particularly poetic - as you say, it's actually just a fairly standard line, given a particular linguistic twist. All these lines are 'different' in the same way.

[Nick Asbury]

Hi Tom

That's a good point about fashion.

I'm sure it's true that the brands mentioned haven't arrived at the same adjective-to-noun formulation completely independently - it's a figure of speech that has become trendy in brand circles, so it generates its own momentum and will probably carry on for a while, before being replaced by something else.

What interests me is whether these fads simply arise out of nowhere, or whether in some way they reflect the time that creates them...

On the 'say it out loud' point, I think you're certainly right if the aim is for a line to enter into popular discourse, as always used to be the case with ad slogans. However, with the contemporary 'brand line' it feels like this isn't part of the ambition any more - rather than entering the conversation, they want to sound elevated and remote. 'Believe in better' and 'Impossible is nothing' feel like chapter headings in a new-age motivational book, or alternative commandments for a religious cult. Almost like they're designed to define a tribe - you'll understand this if you're 'one of us'.

Not saying that's a good thing, obviously.

[Tom Albrighton]

@Nick

If you're selling brand seminars to creatives, it's probably a good thing. But if you're selling digital TV subscriptions to average households during a recession…

[Johnny Cullen]

Couldn't agree more. But how can we save the day? In true British fashion, we should start encouraging other brands to take the mickey.
So come on Mr Harry Ramsden and colleagues, how about a "Believe in Batter"* campaign?
Perhaps the good folks at All-Bran could try "Unpassable is Nothing"*.
And you diamond geezers at the Serious Fraud Office (yes, I know you're busy), what's wrong with "Helping You Find Wealthy"?*

*Important Legal Notice: That'll be £20K for each concept please. Fees to the usual address.

[Nick Asbury]

Johnny - good points well made. Please be aware of my policy of taking a 50% cut for all slogans suggested on this blog.