Remember in the 1980s when it was cool to “market” products using buzzwords like “laser” or “micro” or “2000.” Back in the 80s there was something magical and futuristic about owning something with the number “2000” in the name. It felt like you were using something from the future. I am sure if we wracked our brains we could come up with a few more “marketing” buzzword from the 1980s.
What brought this on? This morning on the way into the office I stopped to grab a coffee. When I got back to my car the wind had blown a paper box lid under my rear tire (had my phone been with me, I would have taken a picture.) The box lid said “Paper Lazer 2000.”
It got me thinking. What are today’s marketing buzzwords? I think because so much of our world is plastic today, organic-sounding words are the marketing buzzwords of the 2000s. For example, next time you walk through the grocery store see how many products incorporate these words in the product marketing: green, bio, eco, clean, holistic, hybrid, sustain, nature, energy, recycled, precycled, freecycled, and then organic… the word itself. Even more interesting is how this “greenwashing” is finding its way into the employment field. I know you’ve heard of “blue collar,” and you may be “white collar,” but maybe you know someone who just graduated with a “green collar” degree?
Rest assured I am not attempting to minimize personal responsibility toward investing in “sustainable” living (see, even I am dropping the buzzwords.) If anything, just be aware that there are almost no standards to ensure that many of your “greenwash”-marketed products have done anything measurably different to deserve the application of those terms. They are mostly marketing. Think of energy bars. Stop at any convenience store and notice the stack of energy bars that claim to boost and enhance and invigorate. Flip the bars and compare the difference between the “energizing” elements in the bar. One focuses on getting you sugars through lots of carbs, while another attempts to rebuild your energy through jacked up protein gram-counts. Anyway, this isn’t about the validity of how to use any of these terms. This is just about having fun remembering buzzwords.
So, if you happen to have the time and you want to try your hand at it, think up a few new futuristic buzzwords and add a comment to this blog entry. Here is the rule. You either have to use the current buzzwords of the 2000s OR come up with a buzzword so crazy that I can’t help but post it up here!
I will kick this off… here are two:
Ecoecho: the act of passing along unsolicited advice about how someone should change their behavior and start living a more environmentally conscious life by simply quoting some enviro-conscious news piece they saw on Good Morning America. Use – “I would like to ecoecho that by saying that 100% people who die this year will exhale excess carbon into our atmosphere, so if you could please just breath-in-only you would be helping all of us.”
Bio-logical: thinking up good sound ideas for sustainable living. Use- “Hey, when you said that you were going to paint your car green and see if that might improve your gas mileage, that made sense to me. Very bio-logical of you!”
2 comments:
Old(er). Throughout my youth I looked at 2000 as a far off point when I would turn 40. Being born in 1960 it was always so easy with the "round years" 1980, 1990, etc. So thanks for the reminder {grin}
Anyway, It's all just marketing. I, reinforce this with my kids every day. They have become very skeptical, which is a good thing. Alas, though, perhaps I bought into it as I am an eco-green-tree-hugging hybrid driver. Geeez, I've sold in.
Sorry, no real suggestions. Just lamenting the passing of 2000. Y3k?
I remember how buzz words followed the current technology... I mean who can forget the Windows 3.0... then 3.1 and eventually started following the years in which they were published Window 95 - 98. That lead to the millenial edition (everything started going with th ebuzz word "mellinial"). Now the tendency is to talk "Post Modern" when if you really get down to what "post modern" is, its the breakdown of communication itself thus rendering its own title useless!? We could all refer to it as "Most Blah-Blah". I am kind of looking forward to whenever this trend will finally leave(until history cycles around again) so I am coining the phrase "Post-Post-Modern" or P2M: the moment when communication is once again possible (as well as logic, reason and common sense.
Post a Comment