Our word cloud analysis of the Twitter and Royal Mail IPOs shows vast variation between the businesses. Harriette Hobbs, client director at Stratton Craig, analyses the differences

Two of the most compelling public sales stories in the past few months have been the Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) for the Royal Mail in October, and Twitter’s recently successful float.

 Not since Facebook’s sell-off in 2012 has there been such a speculative frenzy over two companies’ share prices and future success. For very different reasons. The Royal Mail’s recent IPO ended 500 years of state- run postal service, bringing into question whether this historic institution should be privatised at all. Twitter, by comparison, is only six years young, yet the company’s IPO aims to raise around $1 billion, even though it hasn’t yet made a profit. Unsurprisingly, the language of the IPO summaries reflects the companies’ respective ambitions and could not be more disparate in approach.

Twitter’s summary honed in on its ground- breaking dynamism and exponential worldwide popularity, flirtatiously dangling the brand assets on which it hopes to capitalise. The word ‘Twitter’ therefore dominated its word cloud, as well as ‘users’, ‘services’ and ‘products.’ It is interesting to see that in the word cloud that doesn’t include the section on risk, ‘non-GAAP,’ ‘EBIDTA,’ ‘net’ and ‘loss’ jump into focus and are the most common conventional corporate terms. Increasingly, non-GAAP measures are being used by smart companies as a strategic asset to communicate effectively and clarify their financial performances. The prolific references to ‘non- GAAP’ and ‘EBITDA’ may suggest therefore that Twitter is keen to warn investors that the company is doing things its own way, but equally, doing it as transparently as possible.

By contrast, the Royal Mail’s IPO summary doesn’t disappoint at being its dutiful, institutionalised self and sticking rigidly to bland corporate lingo, with the faceless ‘Group’ totalling the most references, followed by ‘FYE,’ ‘offer,’ ‘shares,’ ‘UK,’ ‘company,’ and ‘shareholder.’ The brand’s safe choice of words and conservative approach clearly struck just the right chord with national sentiment. When the stock went public, the ardour for shares was insatiable, with demand over-subscribed by up to seven times. It seems the nation bought into this historic establishment because its approach was as predictable as a pair of socks at Christmas. No need for a cool, up-tempo brand whistling a cutting-edge tune. Perhaps Royal Mail had learned a valuable lesson from its failure to rebrand as Consignia back in 2001.

The most notable word used of similar significance in both IPO offerings was ‘may,’ that lovely modifying modal verb that serves to please all financial regulatory bodies and cover any statement that may just sound too ballsy. It trills with opportunity yet writes off any need for accountability.

While Twitter appears to be thriving on its youth and gung-ho attitude, and the Royal Mail on its heritage, it remains to be seen whether their idiosyncratic language will continue to seduce their target markets or whether their IPOs will serve to be a catalyst for change.