I’m currently searching for flights to a small mid-western city, where I’ll spend most of my summer. It’s a nice little town so my transition from big city London to small town America will be complete. At least for the next three to six months. In a way, I’m excited to start traveling and I’m really ready to be off the bench – no more quick do this projects or here add lipstick to that walking porkchop over there.
Frankly, I didn’t know where I was going when I opened this post but my reference to Lipstick on porkchops or putting lipstick on a pig got me thinking about one of my favorite new terms. No, it’s not new to others, but thanks to my willful avoidance of business speak it’s new to me.
Lipstick on a pig applies to the following concepts:
- Advertising your car as having great gas mileage despite the fact the gas milage hasn’t changed
- Or, stop advertising the MPH and just give the total miles to a tank (mileage or tank size?)
- Basic analysis of a company, put it into a new diagram
Essentially, it’s anything old that has been made to appear new. I loved the imagery so I started extending the metaphor some. Put on a new hat and dress; or giving the old piggy a new pair of shoes. The mental image these little pigs in new outfits is just great. This idea can explain 95% of all the ‘new ideas’ out there – especially in marketing.
A couple of bunnies are playing in the yard – hmm, lipstick on a bunny? No, Playboy probably owns the trademark …
Lipstick on a pig is an old phrase, and likely predates the rise of corporate-speak. I’ll grant you that it does have plenty of application in the business world today.