PRWeek is delighted to bring you this very unique rundown, siloed alphabetically, of the worst industry jargon according to PRWeek UK Power Book entrants - the Power Book launched last week, click here to view it.
PRWeek doesn't neccessarily agree with every choice: Greta? Diversity? PR...? But it's a useful checklist to help avoid eye rolls and sinking hearts next time you reach out to, or jump on a call with, colleagues, clients or peers.
So... let's nut this out.
A: Activation, agent of change, agile, a hundred per cent, align/aligned/alignment, at the end of the day, astroturfing, authentic/authenticity, AVEs, award-winning, awesome!
B: Back to back, BAME/BME, bandwidth, being 'across' something, blue-sky thinking, boomer, boutique-style advice, brand journey, ‘[brand X] taps [agency X] as AOR, Brexit, briefing, Brits, buzz.
C: Cadence, can you action that?, cascade, chemistry meeting, circle back, co-creation, collaborate/collaboration, communicate this, consumer, content, content atomisation, corpsumer, creative, creative tension, credentialize, crowded field, curate.
D: Deadline, deep dive, delighted, deliverables, desksides, digital, direction of travel, disruptive/disrupter, diversity, diversity champion, do more with less, double click on that, double down, drain, drill down, drumbeat.
E: Earnings, easy win, eatery, engagement, engaging, evergreen content, eyeballs.
F: Fake news, femvertising, fiscal [year], fish where the fish are, flat out.
G: Game-changer/game-changing, gem, going forward, granular/granularity, greenwashing, Greta, groundbreaking.
H: Hard stop, hard-working press office, #hashtag, hijack, holding the pen, holistic approach, horizontality, how do we go viral?
I: I can't really explain it but I don't feel these ideas are quite right, iconic, ideation, I hear you, I hope you are well?, I’m just following up our last exchange, impressions, incredibly, inflection point, innovative, insight, integrated, influencer, it is what it is.
J: Jargon, journey, jump on a call, just (as in, ‘I’m just calling to...’), just-in-time organisation.
L: Ladder up, landscape, lean in, learnings, let’s elevate this, let’s take this offline, levelling up, leverage, liquid to lips, LOL, loop me in, low-hanging fruit.
M: Managing expectations, manifesto, marketing mix, matrix management structure, measurement, millennial, move the needle, much anticipated.
N: Narrative, native advertising, newsjacking, nut this out.
O: OMG, on-boarding, on-going, one-pager, outreach, optics, OTS, oven-ready.
P: Passion, people’s [something], piece, ping, pivot, platform, play in this space, popping, PR, PR-able, PR disaster, press release, procurement, purpose, push the envelope.
R: Raising awareness, reach, reach out, reinvent the wheel, relatable, retro-fit, reverse engineer, ring round, ROI.
S: Scale up, scrappy, selling in, silo, slideware, smoke and mirrors, snowflake, so (to start a sentence), socialise (in relation to social media), social listening, social media, social-media bubble, social purpose [see: purpose], solutions, soup to nuts, speaks to, spin, stakeholders, storytelling, strategy/strategic, super, surprise and delight, swim lanes, symbiotic, synergy.
T: The sector, think outside the box, thought shower, timings are tight, touch base, to your point, tracking, trust.
U: Unpack.
V: Very unique, via.
W: Wash-up session, -wash (eg: greenwash, ethics wash etc.), weapons-grade monitoring, what does success/good look like?, wheelhouse, woke, woke capitalism, world class.
Z: Zeitgeist.
The final comment goes to Jennifer Scardino, senior executive VP and head of global comms at Banco Santander:
The industry jargon or buzzword that annoys me most is… "It’s a long list, so I will lean into this transparently; my value-added here is to object – seriously now – to our overuse of euphemisms and acronyms. We need to speak with our stakeholders clearly. (I co-created this response with my teammates in an innovative/agile/crowd-sourced methodology).
More from the 2020 Power Book:
Who's in? PRWeek launches UK Power Book and lists lead players in each sector
In Pictures: PRWeek UK Power Book 2020 launch
From the editor-in-chief: Putting the most powerful PR pros under the spotlight
PRWeek UK Power Book 2020: Top 10 in retail comms (in-house)
PRWeek UK Power Book 2020: Top 10 in corporate and financial comms (agency)
