Most Overused Marketing Terms

A few years ago, Jason Cohen posted in his blog (A Smart Bear) "Authentic" is dead, in which he goes on to say that some words have been used so often, that they have actually lost all meaning. Well, that got me thinking, since I help a lot of start ups, and do a lot of marketing, branding, and word-smithing along the way, I thought I would build upon Jason's observations and do my own little survey. So, I compiled a list of 43 words (see THE LIST below) that I see used over, and over, and over again, and asked my little network of people (colleagues, friends, business partners, etc.), what they though were the most overused. Well, 1351 people responded, and out of the list of 43, there are five that stand out as the most overused. With 1351 respondents the percentage indication is in parenthesis. The most overused terms include: Innovative (54.5%); Cost Effective (43.0%); Low Hanging Fruit (42.8%); Out of the Box (42.6%); and Best of Breed (41.8%).

Most of the other terms highlighted as being overused between 33% to 10% of the time. The least overused terms include WOW, Single Source, Prestigious, Maven, Craftsmanship and Fanatical Support. Needless to say, these results are not at all what I expected, but are interesting nonetheless.

Click here if you want to see the spreadsheet.

THE LIST
All-Star
Authentic
Best of Breed
Convergence of ____
Core Competency
Cost Effective
Craftsmanship
Disruptive
Easy
Expert
Fanatical Support
Fast
Generation X
Genuine
Guru
Innovative
Insight / Insightful
Low Hanging Fruit
Maven
Ninja
One Stop Shop
Open
Organic
Out of the Box
Paradigm Shift
Powerful
Prestigious
Profound
Proven
Quality
Reliable
Responsive
Revolutionary
Rock Star
Secure
Simple
Single Source
Solution
Synergy
Transparent
Unique
Win-Win
WOW

Comments

The Moldy Middle

While taking statistics during my quest to get an MBA and while earning my engineering degree, the professors always emphasized the importance of finding the statistical mean of any population by using the Central Mean Theorem (a.k.a the highest point of the Bell Curve). As an engineer, this was essential in order to maximize throughput, minimize cost and waste, and ultimately make a better, faster, cheaper widget. A funny thing happened on the way to the dark side of marketing. I discovered that the only thing in the middle of the road was quite literally dead road kill. I do not know if you remember stores like Bradlees, Ames and Service Merchandise (just to name a few), but they all folded because the environment changed and they were caught trying to service the mythological “average customer.” Part of that change came when Wal-Mart began its juggernaut with the discount department store. Wal-Mart did two things right: 1) Focused on “mobile” consumers, and 2) Fo

The Rush to Bottom

I cannot take credit for these words of wisdom, and sadly I do not know who wrote it originally. So, I cannot acknowledge them by name but I can acknowledge their exceptional talent to get a message across with clarity and hard-hitting truths. Whomever this author is, I thank and admire you and take pleasure in sharing this with others! I have also included a video if anyone is interested in sharing it. “When the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great...but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.” An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer. The professor then said, “OK, we will have an experiment in this class on socialism. All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one wi

How Much is Enough?

I have been thinking about integrity and honesty, and frankly should humanity even continue, but that is another thread. In my thinking, I keep coming back to the same question: How much or little cheating is enough? Or stated another way? How much of a lie makes you a liar? How much cheating do you have to do to be a cheater? How much do you need to steal for you to be considered a thief? How much infidelity do you need to be considered an adulterer? How much fraud to you need to commit for it to be criminal? How much of the truth needs to be changed for it to be untrue? How much shit exactly, does something need to have to be considered a shit sandwich? How dead must a person be to be considered murdered? How pregnant do you have to be to be considered pregnant? OK, the last two were off topic but the answer is “any”.. Any amount of lying makes you a liar. Any amount of cheating makes you a cheater. Any amount of stealing makes you a thief. Any amount of infidelity makes you an adult

The Profit Prophet

Search This Blog