Is innovation in your company’s DNA? Or maybe it’s collaboration that’s coursing through your corporation’s veins? Does your organization have a strong beating heart that’s pumping bright red blood while you keep your finger on the pulse of the industry?
The vivid imagery is giving me the ick, especially the DNA bit. Here’s why I’d like to see brands and copywriters stop saying DNA.
It’s inaccurate.
Businesses don’t have DNA. When you say something is in your company’s DNA, it’s an abstraction. Why be abstract when you can be concrete and direct? For example, instead of saying innovation is in your DNA, you could say something much more realistic and therefore more relatable—such as, “We live to innovate,” or, if you want to get crafty, “Innovation is our motivation.”
It’s upsetting.
I’m lighthearted and/or sarcastic most of the time, but not right now. When I say the thought of DNA is upsetting, I’m being completely serious. DNA is used to identify the deceased in natural disasters. It’s taken from crime scenes and victims to bring perpetrators to justice. It leads medical patients to life-altering and terminal diagnoses.
Those three letters likely evoke trauma for a lot of people. As a copywriter, you always want to be mindful of every possible connotation and avoid potentially painful ones whenever possible. DNA is not indispensable. You can find another way to say it.
It’s gross.
This may just be a product of my own health anxiety (I got my first blood test as an adult at age 35), but I don’t want to think about my bodily fluids—and I definitely don’t want to think about yours. And if your entity did somehow have DNA, I wouldn’t want to think about your entity’s DNA, either.
Am I one person with one odd and perhaps unnecessary reaction to DNA? Yes, but your audience comprises people who will each have their own reaction to your wording. If you weirded me out with your DNA, you lost me, 1:1. And who’s to say I’m the only one who feels that way?
It’s everywhere.
DNA is everywhere.
There, now do you see why it’s not what you’re going for?
No but seriously, if nothing else, DNA is a marketing cliché. In the B2B world, it’s a dime a dozen.
What does a dozen DNA even look like anyway? I don’t want to know.
