The internet had a bit of fun recently with a video from the McDonald’s CEO.

In the clip, he’s tasting one of the company’s burgers and describing it enthusiastically. But instead of calling it a burger, or even a sandwich, he repeatedly referred to it as…

“The product.”

Predictably, social media jumped on it.

People joked that it sounded like the burger had been focus-grouped by consultants or described by someone who had never actually eaten one. The language felt stiff, overly corporate, and oddly disconnected from the experience of, well… eating a burger.

But beneath the memes is a genuinely useful lesson—especially for B2B marketers.

It’s a reminder of how obvious it is when a company isn’t speaking the language of its buyers.

The Danger of Internal Language

Inside companies, everything eventually becomes a “product.”

Product managers talk about product roadmaps.
Executives discuss product performance.
Sales teams report on product adoption.

That language makes sense internally. It’s efficient and precise.

The problem starts when that same language shows up in customer-facing messaging.

In marketing materials, websites, and sales conversations, buyers are suddenly introduced to:

• “Our product”
  
• “Our solution”
  
• “Our offering”
  
• “Our capabilities”
  

None of these words are technically wrong. But they rarely reflect how buyers actually think about what they’re trying to accomplish.

Buyers don’t wake up in the morning thinking, “I need a new solution.”

They think:

• “We need to improve partner engagement.”
  
• “Our sales team needs to close deals faster.”
  
• “We’re losing visibility into performance.”
  
• “We need to increase bookings.”
  

In other words, buyers think in terms of problems, outcomes, and goals—not products.

Why Language Matters More Than We Think

The difference might seem small, but language is one of the fastest signals buyers use to judge whether a company really understands them.

When messaging feels overly corporate or internally focused, it creates distance.

Buyers may not consciously analyze it, but they feel it immediately. The message sounds like it came from a product roadmap or executive presentation rather than from someone who understands their day-to-day challenges.

That’s exactly why the McDonald’s moment felt so funny.

Calling a burger a “product” stripped away the context people associate with food: taste, experience, enjoyment. It replaced it with the sterile language of a boardroom.

And the disconnect was instantly obvious.

The Best Messaging Sounds Like the Buyer

The strongest marketing rarely introduces new language. Instead, it mirrors the language buyers already use.

When companies take the time to study how their customers talk about problems, goals, and success, the difference in messaging becomes obvious.

Compare these two approaches:

Internal language:

Our platform provides a comprehensive solution designed to optimize partner engagement.

Buyer language:

Drive more bookings by motivating your travel partners.

Both describe the same capability. But the second version immediately connects to something the buyer actually cares about.

That shift—from internal terminology to buyer language—is where strong messaging starts.

Where Buyer Language Comes From

One of the most reliable sources of buyer language is customer research.

When you interview customers or prospects and ask them to describe their challenges, you start to hear the patterns:

The same words.
The same phrases.
The same ways of describing problems.

Over time, these conversations reveal the vocabulary buyers naturally use to describe:

• their challenges
  
• their priorities
  
• the outcomes they care about
  

Those words are far more powerful than anything invented in a marketing brainstorm.

Because they already exist in the buyer’s world.

A Simple Test for Your Messaging

If you want a quick test for whether your messaging uses buyer language, try this:

Take a sentence from your website and imagine a customer saying it out loud.

Would it sound natural?

Or would it sound like the McDonald’s CEO talking about a “burger product”?

If it feels unnatural, overly polished, or oddly corporate, there’s a good chance it came from inside the company rather than from the buyer’s perspective.

And that’s usually where the opportunity lies.

The Takeaway

Most companies don’t struggle with explaining what their product does.

They struggle with explaining it in a way that reflects how buyers actually think and talk about their problems.

The difference between those two things can be subtle—but it’s incredibly important.

Because when your messaging speaks the buyer’s language, it doesn’t feel like marketing.

It feels like understanding.

And unlike calling a burger a “product,” that’s something people rarely make fun of. 🍔