Calling all sellers! Get ready to disrupt (yup, that's one of them) your channel tract with marketing clich that will make you puke. These marketing buzz terms are polluting creative minds everyplace - and there power even be scientific evidence linking these cringe-worthy catchphrases to Millennials' intense feelings of "I don't want a desk job". It's for sure possible. However, for everyone else, can we make a pact?
As fellow sellers and creative professionals, let's kindly retire (or extinguish) these irritating phrases so we can all evolve past this "noise" cluttering our industry. Are you with me?!
1. Disruption
First, let's be clear. "Disruption" is really more of a business term. It describes a market condition that takes place when an existing market collapses and a new one emerges. It's actually very similar to "Disruptive Innovation" which happens when a new market comes to realisation entirely. Uber power be a great example of both - contingent on how you look at it.
However, when this "Wall Street" phrase complete up leaking all over Madison Avenue, "disruption" and "disruptive" became too used, patterned down terms that basically started to mean nomatter.
Certainly "Creative Disruption", power have a place, as it refers to exposing business model flaws and promoting big changes in consumer behaviour (in the creative sense). However, I can't help but wonder whether some Agency Account Director just throws out "disruptive" terms just to win some big account. I mean, come on. Disrupt what? Isn't it our job as sellers to change consumer habits and get noticed?
2. Growth hacking
Okay, I realize that "hacking" is supposed to mean "coding" in that sense (not cutting down), but this phrase sure does sound like an oxymoron to me!
Popularized by Sean Ellis and other techies in the early 2000s, the term was meant to describe non-traditional ways to attain growth through experimental marketing strategies and emerging technologies. READ: this is also a canonised way of describing underpaid "bootstrappers" (oh, but with equity of course!) trying to unlock the key to "crowd culture" (yawn).
Perhaps growth-hacking was a relevant, substantive term 15 years ago, but not today. Most sellers are expected to (magically) attain growth with technological brilliance and creative thinking because it's our job. Sound like much of pressure? Well, welcome to marketing.
3. SoLoMo
Oh no-no. If your ears have not been scarred yet by this irritating term (in what seems like "slow-mo"), it means "Social-Local-Mobile" as if this is some genius conception or secret to being relevant. So, delight, don't use this catch-phrase. Ever.
4. Actionable Insights
Actionable? As opposed to "Well, we learned somematter today, and we're not going to do anymatter about it".
I mean, am I missing somematter? Where does one look for "actionable insights"? Is this somematter people need additionally to regular insights? For example, if I'm comparison landing page performance in The Marketing Manager, and I see one campaign outperforming the other, I think I know what action to take. Do you?
5. Seamless Integration
If you work in the tech sector, I bet you are decidedly inclined your head "yes". This godawful term is about as common and nonmeaningful as your seller locution "we have an API" when asked "does your product do (xyz)?".
In fact, let's just throw in some puzzle pieces to truly visually convey (because we're idiots) that our computer software seamlessly integrates (puke) with tedium and clich. After all, we need to "scream" that each piece of our ho-hum app actually functions when interfacing with other random technology.
And spell this style of tech marketing seems awfully common (more like ubiquitous), to me, it feels rather ironic. After all, I'm pretty sure that puzzle pieces have jagged, noticeable edges. Don't they?
Besides, there is no such matter as "seamless" integration. It takes work and maintenance for two tools to "talk" to one other - and you (the consumer) get to invite out it. There you have it.
6. Turn-key (and everymatter "key" in general)
Let's face it. If soul offers you a "turn-key", "off the shelf" solution, does it make you open your wallet? Personally, it makes me turn into a glazed-over zombie. Why? Because even if somematter is difficult, a brand will either ne'er admit it or up-sell you the "turn-key" solution (rigor mortis setting in).
Now of course, I understand that this term was once similar with "effortless". Nevertheless, it has since evolved into a unprofitable adjective that lazy sellers use to describe some blah-blah-blah with blah-blah-blah. That being said, I propose we put away this unprofitable adjective (pun intcomplete).
In fact, as long as we are stuck on clichdoorway analogies, can we delight also stop locution [anymatter]gate to describe a conspiracy theory? Maybe I'm being unreasonable, but I would love it if people could coin somematter new. After all, the key (cringe) to creative marketing is to explain conceptions substantively. That's why "turn-key" is no longer descriptive; tell me WHY somematter is so effortless - in an engaging, incommunicative way. Does this sound difficult? Well it is. That's why creative people have jobs.
7. Content Is King
Yawn. "Content is king" and "(whatever) is queen" sounds like a big, gay party - but everyone's really bored with it.
It's no mystery. Live sports and fan favorites like "The Walking Dead" keep Cable television in business. After all, those Cable bills are expensive! Perhaps that's why this cringe-worthy, irritating phrase simply won't die; decision-makers in the media universe are ignoring the fact that modern consumers are stingy with their time. How else can we explain that endless sea of boring content?
Maybe I'm wrong, but here is my understanding of modern consumers (who all have built-in A.D.D)
AWESOME content = I will only tolerate ads if they cannot be blocked. And if I really hate ads, I will PAY to have them blocked - so delight stop forcing these painful pre-rolls and what feels like 10-minute commercial blocks on me.
BORING content = I hate you for wasting my time - a.k.a. "get out of my in-box" syndrome spell decidedly clicking "spam".
Assuming that the media gods disagree with me, I believe this painful phrase will continue to exist.
8. Advertainment
Speaking of "content is crap", sellers make up stupid terms like "advertainment" to seem like they're resolution some really big cultural problem - but they're not.
"Advertainment" is basically just an annoying way to explain "branded content", product placement or flat-up fantastic marketing in disguise. I understand the conception, but here's the problem: if you call your own work "advertainment", you sound like a pompous fop.
Don't get me wrong - some sellers have managed to make advertising very entertaining, including Red Bull with their adrenaline junkie videos, and AMC with their Walking Dead and Mad Men apps (a.k.a. "gamification" - which on paper could make this list).
Nevertheless, does "advertainment" really solve a problem? I guess so, but can we delight not call it that?
In all seriousness though, if you are a seller that somehow brown-striped out how to move product without annoying people, congrats. This is an attainment. I'm serious.
9. Ecosystem (to describe everymatter)
Are we a bunch of ants stuck in a science class panorama demonstrating seamless integration (see term #5 above)? Silicon Valley seems to think so.
We hear this word much, especially when some "thought leader" (yawn, could also make this list) is ill-prepared to answer a tough question in a meeting.
"Well you see [insert CEO name here], our next step towards dynamic consumer behavior patterns is to move the social conversation to the Internet-of-Things ecosystem," said the slightly hungover marketing executive convalescent from last night's seller bender.
Look. We've all been there, but the use of the word "ecosystem" is starting to check out of control. Somehow, everymatter can arguably be an ecosystem, including that Chia Pet they sell in Walmart. Do you see what I mean? Germination. Photosynthesis. Whatever. And it all brings me back to where I started: my seventh-grade science class.
10. Snackable Content
Doesn't this phrase make you want to vomit? Personally, I find it nauseating, but here's some "food-for-thought": the term "content consumption" is actually the mothership conception that spawned this ugly-duckling buzz term. All it means is that time-starved consumers prefer incommunicative headlines, bullet points, easy-to-read lists (unlike mine), and pretty much the opposite of heavy, homogenous-looking text. Makes sense.
Nonetheless, isn't it amazing how tasty this well-worn phrase sounds? I actually about puked (in a good way) when Grant Higginson of Welby Consulting tweeted it to us during our "Tweet the most annoying marketing cant to win a drone" contest. Needless to say, he won.
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