Huge company takes gigantic risks in an infamously volatile market. Huge company gets enormous help from the government in the form of tax breaks and other favors. In the face of all this, huge company is now making piles upon piles of cash.

Are you rooting for this company, which has obviously figured out how to work the capitalist system to full advantage, to succeed or fail?

It’s not Citi or Goldman Sachs. It’s Yankees Global Enterprises, or YGE. This holding company owns both the New York Yankees and the YES cable television network. And when the World Series ended last night, with millions of people screaming until purple in the face, did they know or care that everything in the lead paragraph is true about their beloved conglomerate?

No one can argue that in the midst of an otherwise crippling global recession, YGE has bought its way back to the World Series, spending money like a drunken sailor on shore leave. In the offseason, YGE committed more than $420 million alone to three free agents. Only YGE and Howard Rubenstein know how many millions they spent on PR to try to defuse the Alex Rodriguez steroids controversy that exploded before spring training.

Sure YGE is free to wheel and deal to its heart’s content. But let’s not forget all the corporate welfare the company has received to construct its new $1.5 billion stadium. YGE has been the beneficiary of hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks, public financing and infrastructure improvements. New York City will shell more than $190 million alone on creating new parks to replace parkland displaced by the new stadium.  

Meanwhile, money keeps flowing through the turnstiles, concession stands and YGE’s cash cow, the YES cable network. 

The lesson here? It’s pretty simple. In terms of public perception, a company can get away with a lot as long as it wins. With the YGE taking the World Series, everyone seems to have forgotten about the tax breaks, the steroids and all the other problems. But the trick is keeping that reputation afloat when that company inevitably starts losing.

They’re called clichés: words and phrases that have been overused to the point that they have become almost meaningless. Businessspeak is rife with them, and it’s time to end them. Look, I’m sure at some point a phrase like “leverage best practices” was new, may even clever. But now it—and its clichéd cousins—is just nauseating. 

I propose that we immediately retire:

Platform—Unless you work on an oil rig, you don’t have to worry about platforms. It’s not a communications platform; it’s a plan or, if you want to get fancy, a strategy.

Dig deep—Stop trying to pretend you work a blue-collar job. Besides, this should go without saying because clients pay us to conduct in-depth research. When is the last time a client asked you for a bit of shallow, perfunctory research.

Drill down—See above. What is it with the PR sector and references to oil, gas and mining industries?

Leverage—When did this become a verb? Leverage “use” instead.

Drive anything—Whether it be driving sales or driving change, it’s driving me crazy. Wouldn’t we rather increase sales or cause change? After all, you can also drive right off a cliff.

Touch base—A completely hollow verb. Unless we truly take it to mean what it has come to mean: “I’ll call them and hope to get their voicemail.”

Leading edge, cutting edge—I’m not sure how these entered the business lexicon. Stop and think about what it’s like to be on the edge: it’s a violent, dangerous, high-risk place to be. So why do we use these phrases to try to convey a positive image of a successful, innovative person, place or thing. Given the fact that these phrases are invariably used incorrectly, let’s just can them.

Human capital—They’re people, people.

Rationalize—Remember the good old days, when people were fired? Then they became laid off. Then they became right-sized. Nowadays when a company cuts people, it rationalizes operations. How can firing people en masse ever be rational? Sometimes it’s necessary, but rational?

Feel free to add your own.

Competitive differentiation is about survival. Your success depends on how your business is positioned vis-à-vis its competition, and rests on your ability to answer one simple question: “Why are you better?” Most companies struggle with communicating their niche and opt for the easy way out by taking their competitors head on.  

But why do businesses readily forget about the easiest route of all - or as it’s know in physics - the path of least resistance? What’s interesting about the path of least resistance is that it describes why an object or entity takes a given path, usually a motion forward through a system, as a result of resistance levels in its environment. As a metaphor for personal effort, it implies least confrontation - a person taking the path of least resistance avoids conflict in order to survive.  

Yet when we extend the concept to the competitive market, the logical conclusion seems paradoxical. To gain (or take away) market share a company needs to avoid confrontation? What about all those Apple v PC ads? Those seem pretty confrontational to me.

Of course, if you’re a giant you have the time and money to wrestle it out. But let’s not forget that Apple, the company everyone wants to be like but nobody can successfully replicate, pursued the path of least resistance before is took PC’s head on. What they uncovered was the “white space” in the market – or in their case the colorful space – and targeted the non-computer geeks. And it worked.  

So what does this mean for a communications strategy? The public relations space is no different; it’s cluttered with competitive messaging. Instead of treating it like a zero-sum game and looking to displace your competition with mainstream messages, take the time to figure out what your strengths are and how to differentiate and re-position your communications efforts. To get there, figure out what “white space” areas of opportunity exist, and the path of least resistance will naturally precipitate. Who says physics and PR have nothing in common?

 A strange craft is seen floating over the skies of the United States. Immediately, the authorities and the news media mobilize. An entire nation is riveted by live reports of the ship soaring through the lower atmosphere. Millions of people are caught up in the excitement. 

The craft lands in a quiet field, and the police and media descend, falling over each other to uncover if what’s inside is a nightmare. 

But, in the end, we’re all fooled. This real-life drama has very little to do with reality. It’s all a fraud. 

Balloon Boy? Yes. But this also describes another great fraud perpetrated on the American people. Sixty-one years ago this month, on the night before Halloween, one of the country’s most popular radio dramas broadcast “breaking news bulletins” of an alien invasion. The creatures land in Grover Mills, New Jersey, of all places, and begin incinerating citizens of the Garden State with heat rays. They march on New York City, where a tremulous reporter broadcasts their advance live on the air. The tension builds, until, at the climax of the broadcast, he succumbs to the aliens’ poison gas attack, and the radio falls silent. 

Around the country, many people took this Orson Welles adaptation of H.G. Wells’ “The War of the Worlds” quite seriously. The public really did descend on tiny Grover Mills to see what they could see. In communities from Cleveland to Seattle, panic ensued. But it was all a trick.  

The Balloon Boy saga reminds us that even the sharpest minds can fall prey to mass hysteria. While today’s pundits love to tell us that stories like Balloon Boy’s spread at unprecedented speed thanks to the likes of 24/7 cable news coverage and social media, it’s important to remember that we’ve seen it all before. 

Wall-to-wall television and “spreadable media” don’t make us any more or less susceptible to hoaxes, ruses and tomfoolery. I’m in agreement with The Who’s Roger Daltrey when he sings, “And I'll get on my knees and pray, we don't get fooled again.” But I know we will.