June 09, 2014

10 Dreadful Clichés The Ad Industry Should Euthanize


Intelligent people talk in simple clear language. Dimwits talk in dense jargon and mind-numbing cliches.

The marketing and advertising world has devolved into a cesspool of dreadful clichés, jargon and meaningless buzzwords.

Here are 10 bullshit ideas and phrases that advertising needs to jettison.

1. Native advertising
Code for ads disguised as editorial perpetrated by integrity-free online publishers trying to trick readers. A new low.

2. Interactive advertising
One click in a thousand is not interactivity. It is absence of interactivity.

3. The consumer is in charge
Hey, Edsel, when was the consumer not in charge?

4. Brand loyalty
For the most part, what we call "loyalty" is just habit, convenience, or mild preference.

5. TV is dying
Here's the only chart that matters.

                                           Source: Nielsen Cross-Platform Report, Q1 2014

6. Stories
Enough with the fucking stories. Advertising needs more than stories. It also needs persuasion.

7. Compelling content
Yeah, people can't get enough of that shit.

8. Disruption
The next person who says this dies. I have friends.

9. Personal brand
For people who don't know the difference between a lifestyle and a life.

10. The Conversation
What fucking conversation? 2009 is over. 



16 comments:

Cecil B. DeMille said...

Oh there are sooooo many that didn't make the list.

adwench said...

My favorite is "influencers." Which could be a barely literate bozo with a blog and a few followers.

dmarti said...

"Relevant" -- that's adtech-speak for "creepy".

Charlotte said...

#8 please let me join your friends.

Charlotte said...

Yes, where's engagement, transparency, bold and exploit. Please make bold go away.

Sonny said...

Native advertising = advertorial (old school)

Heidi Kenyon said...

The authenticity of this low-hanging fruit really moves the needle in an actionable way.

MarcieJ said...

Can you please get your friends on this NOW?

Annie said...

I agree that we care too much about online these days, and it's way too early to bury TV, but maybe instead of comparing watching videos on TV and online, we'd get a more realistic picture by comparing time spent on TV and on the web. Video watching is not the only thing we do online (e.g. I'm reading your blog now), and where we can see ads.

bob hoffman said...

That's easy. Americans spend 7 times as much time watching TV as they do on line. (Nielsen Cross-Platform Report, Q1 2014)

Cecil B. DeMille said...

Urge to kill...rising...

headlemur said...

Social Media is the Jonestown of the Advertising Industry

David Burn said...

You're disrupting me with this compelling content.

jeff@usadman.com said...

After 40 years in advertising, I can proudly say I am guilty only of #4. Or is it because I'm so old that I've only heard of one out of ten modern clichés? Where the hell is David Ogilvy, anyway? I haven't had a text from him in years.

Chuck Nyren said...

Bob - you'll a kick out of this:

http://www.deadline.com/2014/06/produced-by-norman-lear-on-tv-ageism/

Jeremy said...

Not according to this research:

http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Mobile-Continues-Steal-Share-of-US-Adults-Daily-Time-Spent-with-Media/1010782

"In 2013, time spent with digital media among US adults surpassed time spent with TV for the first time—with mobile driving the shift. "