Doom, doom and daft names

If you believe the media and “research shows PR” then all ages of Europeans are in financial meltdown.

In the UK, Liverpool Victoria (finance company) has done some research and found that 66% of over 50s fear they face an impoverished retirement. Conclusion they should save more – guess what, LV provides saving products.

In today’s Observer there is a report about the young in Spain, France and Italy who are: “facing a lifetime on low salaries with unrewarding jobs, forever poorer than their parents.”

Of course there is an element of truth in both conclusions but you need to dig a lot deeper into the numbers to find what is really happening. Far deeper than you will find in a Sunday newspaper article or a corporate press release.

Other than banging on about the dreadful state of the world these extracts have another thing in common. The both employ a GAUADN (Get attention by using a daft name). So in the case of Liverpool Victoria it is the 'Face Retirement Earnings Doubts' (Freds). In the Observer it is “Baby Losers”.

OK, OK, OK I know it is all about getting attention. But surely the world has moved on and there are more sophisticated ways of doing it! Dick Stroud