Marketing Buzzwords Everybody Hates (But You?)

09 Dec Marketing Buzzwords Everybody Hates (But You?)

I stumbled upon this post from Meeting Boy with a list of the top 29 hated office buzzwords. Personally, I think the worst offenders are marketers.

The Problem With Buzzwords

People are prone to using buzzwords because they want to appear current (think Dr. Evil “I’m hip. I’m with it”) and they think it makes them appear knowledgeable. Buzzwords are also popular in masking negative situations – which everyone knows.

Using buzzwords can make a person seem condescending or disingenuous – especially when the listener is not familiar with the buzzword. People in different industries, or from different countries and cultures could be easily confused. There are actually many parallels of using buzzwords to using industry-specific jargon. Just like the average person doesn’t understand a quantum physicist describing the scientific potential of the flux capacitor, that scientist probably doesn’t understand how your company is leveraging synergistic rockstars. The most important part about speaking and writing is getting the message across, and using buzzwords can guarantee that that message is lost on the audience.

You may say, “but everyone is using them!”. Stop. That’s even MORE of a reason not to use them. Especially in marketing. Do you want to sound like your competition? Do you want to offer a “robust” product like More Successful Competition company? No. As much as you may want to be like More Successful Competition you don’t want your potential customers to think that because they’ll just stick with doing business with More Successful Competition – you’re already the same, right?

And if everyone is using buzzwords, that makes you prone to the eye-rolling wrath of your audience and co-workers. Most people view buzzwords as completely cliche.

According to Meeting Boy:

Every buzzword probably meant something once, but not for long. The expiration on a buzzword is faster than you think, in no small part because so many vapid windbags will beat every ounce of life out of them. 500 mentions later that buzzword is no longer the shiny new badge of a knowledgeable insider; it’s the rotting banana in the office kitchen that someone forgot about over the weekend.

The Most Hated Buzzwords

Here are my favorites from the list:

1. think outside the box (16%)
2. circle back (15%)
3. synergy (14%)
4. it is what it is (13%)
5. touch base (13%)
6. at the end of the day (13%)
7. low-hanging fruit (11%)
8. value-added (11%)
9. proactive (10%)
10. paradigm shift (9%)
11. best practices (9%)
12. going forward (8%)
13. take it to the next level (7%)
14. win-win (7%)
15. on the same page (7%)
16. leverage (6%)
17. a lot on my plate (6%)
18. robust (6%)
19. impactful (4%)
20. rockstar (4%)
21. flawless execution (1%)

If you’d like to see the full list (I didn’t omit a lot), please visit Meeting Boy’s post

What do you think? What are you most hated buzzwords or are you guilty of using buzzwords? Leave us a comment!