Friday 3 February 2012

Word of the day - niche

Today's word is niche, used as a verb. In fact, used at a meeting that I recently attended, in the sentence "We have to niche up some of the messages." It is interesting that niche seems to take the preposition "up" although it could just as well have taken the opposite - "niche down". 

Dictionary.com accepts niche as a verb and gives the brief definition "to place [something] in a niche." Google's definition search facility amplifies this definition: Place or position (something) in a niche: "these elements were niched within the shadowy reaches"; "decorated with niched statues". (NB: to use the Google definition search, you just type in the word and add the word "definition", e.g. "irony definition").

The meaning of the illustrative sentence I have given you is that we must position ourselves with a wide range of interested groups, even though they may be small, by targeting our messages more explicitly. I guess that's a good idea.