Reading my morning paper on BrandChannel, I was astonished by a new and very imaginative buzzword. After the blogosphere (aka blogspace), we now have to deal with "tubosphere". Brand new, still unknown, this neologism doesn't have its article on wikipedia, millions of refered pages in google, nor monthly stats by Technorati... yet.
It's sometime enough to make you sick. The web industry is a fertile ground for new buzzwords. With the User Generated Content (UGC), the web-put your number here- . -zero, the word-of-mouse, the click-and-mortars (that is so 2004!?!) and many more, you can pick your favorite one. (Please visit the very entertaining Web Economy Bullshit Generator.)
The function of all these neologisms ? Mainly branding the business consultants that invented them. Buzzwords are most often used by compagnies seeking for a diffentiation among a cluttered web consultant industry, and they aren't used to explain a somehow-difficult-to-understand-innovative-idea rather that to produce a sexy sells pitch.
Marketers love it
Buzzwords are popular in Ad Agencies and their clients' offices, with no one seeing them as a threat to clear ideas and actions (the only apparent resistance: Buzzword or Bullshit Bingo). No need for a new technology or indescriptable abstract concept to formulate new buzzwords... Daily, blogs and litterature publish new evocative words such as Lovemark, wikinomics, maven and a never ending list of acronyms seeking for new process that will give marketer access to the Garden of Eden of retail sales and brand equity : USP, USL, OWE (one word equity)*, VBB (value based brand)... and now the marvellous "tubosphere".
Countrary to appearances, buzzwords aren't limited to the marketing-o-sphere(TM, just in case). Medias invent new words or give a huge coverage to neologisms that become keywords to explain a trend X. These buzzwords help the comprehension (even approximative) of new ideas and give people the tools to re-distribute the new ideas. Buzzwords also help to give ones the impression of being in the known. From Weapon of Mass Destrruction, to Omega-3 or the infotainment, it takes a name to get good visibility in the medias. The use of buzzwords give the impression of newness, which is the number 1 ingredient to seduce trendhunting journalists.
Their Function
When they are not reduced to a sing-and-dance role in front of prospect clients, conference audiences or college students (maybe new dates, who knows?), buzzwords can still be usefull to democratize general marketing knowledge. New ideas always push old ones and being able to name new concepts help this sharing process... Things don't really exist before having a name, are they ?
Buzzwords are a fabulous example of idea packaging for commercial use as well as sharing with others. They are much more than passing trends, they become a popular testimony of the way we understand our world/industry. For example, see how passionate people are about naming the different generations (Silent, Beat, BabyBoomers - aka PapyBoomers, Jones, GenX, GenY, etc.), fashion periods (Metal, Grunge, HipHop, etc.). Even serious scholars get involved in the semantic fight about the evolution of eras (modernism, postmodernism, hypermodernism, neostructuralism, etc.).
All in all, buzzwords have the double-function of creating the lingo that identifies those in the known AND of giving names to abstract and not-easy-to-explain concepts. Therefore, they have the same value than the subject they represent. Lets not get hypnotized by good sounding empty-of-sense buzzwords.
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* This one was brough to you by Saatchi
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