Thursday, March 12, 2015

Phrase set on stun

Advertising is a business lousy with buzzwords. And not just ones we create for public consumption.

Within these walls, and I mean figuratively because as any creative who’s worked in an agency in the last fifteen years knows they don’t have walls anymore, there are all kinds of words and phrases it seems people can’t get enough of.

I’m talking about campaign integration. Laddering up. Digital growth. Emerging strategic social media. Content analysis. Monetization solutions. Everyone's picking the low hanging fruit, and pushing the envelope. And don’t even get me started on millenials, brand engagement or interactive experiential guru (not kidding).

You’d hope agencies would be staffed with people fueled by passion and creativity who want to do the best possible work that wins awards, gets results, makes clients happy and lets them get more clients that let them do more great creative. And in some shops, you’ll find a lot of those people - especially if you’re looking in the creative department.

Problem is there aren’t enough of them. Instead, running around in agencies are people fueled by fear. Of losing the client, their job or their corner office - which they’ve probably already lost thanks to open floorplans.

Anyway, bitching and moaning about it isn’t going to change it. These buzzwords are like cockroaches: for every one you manage to kill, there’ll be a hundred more to replace it.

But next time I hear one of those words or phrases in one of the many meetings I’m in, I just may have to counter it with a word I find myself using more and more often.

Bullshit.

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