Buzzwords. Everyone uses them. Some are a necessary evil to make sense in a world where things are changing so fast we just don’t have the language to describe it. Some help you segue into a hip and happening clique, just like the cool kids like in Mean Girls. Others are just evil and will sit in the back of your brain, then fritz it to hell. It’s a hard line to toe. We’ll let you decide which on our list falls into which camp. We want your views - vote on which you think is the most offensive buzzword and should be banned. Or suggest your own. Vote here
Cord cutting - Vote here
Cord cutting, not the ceremonial ritual of new parents cutting the cord of their newborn child, but people who kick their pay TV service to the curb in favour of getting their TV content from elsewhere. Think Netflix, or Stan or Quickflix. But it also conjures creepy images of people attached to TV sets like just born babies still attached to their mother. The TV isn’t your mother, people. Cut the cord, dude.
Dark social - Vote here
Think dark, we’re talking Angelina when she married Jonny Lee Miller wearing a shirt covered in blood, dark. No, wait, not that dark. But it does have Facebook foaming at the mouth. Why? Because it’s an area of social they don’t control. Dark social refers to the social sharing of content that occurs outside of what can be measured by web analytics programs – think SMS and email. The dark side – go to it.
Strativity - Vote here
Sometimes a portmanteau is a thing of genius. Think bromance, frenemy and hangry. Strativity is not one of those. Where the two worlds of creativity and strategy collide is good in context but not in vocab. Those that divebomb this nugget into anything need a good hard look at themselves. There’s many culprits and one comms bod has even banned execs from using it outside the premises … but we know they do.
Media agnostic - Vote here
Is agnostic today’s holistic? Both of these ic’s are cumbersome and done to death – so drop it, already. We get it, you don’t want to be put in a ‘silo’, you’re chilled, neutral and super adaptable. But, come on, no preference is just sitting on the fence, right? Could it just mean that you don’t know what’s best and don’t want to commit to anything? Of course not, you know what you’re doing.
SoLoMoVo - Vote here
Well if you have only just got your head around YoLo (no, it’s not a frozen yoghurt) then this is going to be tough for you. SoLoMoVo is social, local, mobile, video, man. Yet another pesky acronym that takes you a second (or five) to remember and say. It sounds like it’s fresh from the mouth of one of those precocious US YouTube yappers, it’s actually a major driver of online ad growth, don’t you know.
Newsjacking - Vote here
Relevance. It’s what brands have always wanted, or aimed for, but now it has a hip term. It sounds far cooler than it is. Think branded newsrooms, and strategies based on hanging branded content on whatever happens to hit the front pages that day in an attempt to achieve likes, sales, or any sort of ROI. It’s what brands do to get into our news feeds.
Fat middle - Vote here
Or phat middle if you’re being cool. This term doesn’t refer to your gut after one too many Pie Face pies and Fat Yaks. It’s far worse. It involves something far scarier – programmatic. There’s a gap of inventory that falls in between premium inventory, available through direct ad-sale channels, and remnant inventory, available through RTB and private exchanges. This is known as “the fat middle,” (we think).
Adgorithm - Vote here
Yes you smiled, because you want to hate it but you know it makes sense and it does have a nice ring to it. Like most ad tech problems, having a procedure or artificial intelligence formula for solving the issue is needed, right? This is where the programmatic trading of ads based on algorithm – aka real-time bidding – comes in. Adgorithms people. It’s so obvious.
Femvertising - Vote here
Feminism and advertising. A combined force to be reckoned with. Shock horror, women respond well to ads that portray women well, and they control 90% of household budgets. We’re talking brands that use strong, positive females in their ads, not tired stereotypes of women as bimbos or sex objects. Not ads that promise unattainable perfection, but those that show women just getting shit done.
You can read the full Top Tens series in The Annual - The best Australian ads, the best ads from overseas, the worst ads on our screens, the top tech moments of the year, and some of the weirder complaints about ads the advertising watchdog received this year.
We also corralled 10 media personalities to talk about how the world is changing from their perspective. The Australian editor in chief Chris Mitchell lets rip on “digital evangelists” and advises us all to “keep our pants on” over mobile.
In the Photo Essay CMOs, CIOs and data kings align: Woolies, Qantas, Quantium,Contiki, Telstra, NRL and more talk about the new frontier of marketing. Read an excerpt of Tony Phillips' and Tony Davis' take here.
Your copies will be landing on desks over the next few days and we'll be sharing some of those insights online over the next few days. You can also buy the iPad version immediately and check it out digitally.
Have something to say on this? Share your views in the comments section below. Or if you have a news story or tip-off, drop us a line at adnews@yaffa.com.au
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