Posts Tagged ‘buzzwords’

Um, how’d it get to be the end of February already?

Here’s a quick roundup of what’s what in the world of marketing, media, and brand strategy:

• Death to buzzwords.  Finally!  Someone else is taking up the anti-buzzword buzzkill.
• Crocs CEO resigns, is replaced.  Not news to many who have been following the ups and downs of this early-stage success story.  My prediction:  Crocs will get worse — way worse — before it gets better.  It’s dealing with oversaturation, intense competition and knockoffs, and some sad brand stigma.
• LinkedIn is not Twitter. I repeat, LinkedIn is not Twitter.  [Via Deb Kolaras]
• Wait, what?  Pepsi is starting throwback branding in addition to its lame new branding?  Color me confused.

I attended the awesome Colorado Capital Conference in Denver today (and topped off the evening with a raucous night of networking with Naturally Boulder, an amazing coalition of people involved in Boulder’s vibrant natural products scene).

At Dave Taylor’s excellent marketing 2.0 session, there was a bit of friendly banter about buzzwords and “buzzword bingo” that got me thinking on one of my pet peeves.

One of the marketing world’s biggest mistakes (and most tempting pitfalls) is its reliance on the buzzword du jour.  “Interface,” “outside the box,” “tipping point,” “upmarket,” “bandwidth”…excuse me while my eyes glaze over.

Maybe it’s just the writer in me (and that copy of Strunk & White that’s burned into my brain), but I ascribe to the philosophy that if you can’t explain it in plain English, you shouldn’t be selling it.  That goes for products and services.  After all, customers are human first.  There’s a reason creepy sales people refer to “warm bodies”…because that’s what we are, first and foremost.

Bottom line: if you can’t say it in comprehensible English, should you really be saying it at all?