Look at any technology news feed and you will see this trend consistently over and over: a brand new term surfaces, becomes a flashy addition to headlines and pitch decks and within a few months every company considers itself an expert in this new term. Whether it’s “cloud-native,” “generative AI” or something newer, it’s no coincidence the cycle keeps repeating. If you understand why tech companies create new buzzwords AI marketing strategy relies on, it’s well worth the while.
Buzzwords Signal Relevance in a Fast-Moving Industry
Technology advances rapidly and companies have to keep up, rather than lagging. A new term or quick adoption of a new term is a good indicator to the investors, customers and competitive orientation that the company is innovating, though the technology might already exist in some shape for years.
This perceived relevance is very important in fundraising and sales dialogue. Investors are looking for partners whose businesses are on the forefront of new trends, and buyers are looking to know that they are buying the latest tech, not “old technologies” with new packaging.When selling in a crowded market segment, what is the way to differentiate?
With many companies creating essentially identical products, unique language is one way of making your product stand out. The other way around is confusing – when dozens of competitors are providing similar functionality they will coin a new term, or adopt a new one, and make it appear that their approach is different, even though in fact the technology is very similar to others in the community.
This differentiation tactic is especially effective in saturated markets, such as AI, where technical features and functions are not always easily distinguishable (and certainly not easy for the non-tech savvy customer to determine), so quirky wording can effectively create a memorable impression that helps differentiate.
Buzzwords: Make Technology Easy for your Buyers
Marketing teams are often challenged to simply explain very forward-looking technical jargon to people who aren’t as technical and are making a decision. Often, these catchy terms are an easy shorthand – a way for a company to give the customer a sense of their capability but need not explain to them detail technical points.
In some ways this can be a dangerous oversimplification to what are actually real and quite complicated differences, but it can also help to make products more palatable for business buyers, who often need to purchase without necessarily being as technically sophisticated as the suppliers.
Building Urgency with Trend-Backed words
When new terminology hits the scene, there is usually an underlying call to action — the impression that if businesses don’t get on board with whatever technology the term is referring to, they are missing out. This psychological instability can lead to sales while the buyer is being persuaded to make more of a rush and make a purchase because he/she doesn’t want to be left behind a major change.
This circumstance is well understood to marketing teams, in no small part because so much of the messaging around emerging technology was focused on transformation and disruption, and not necessarily on nitty-gritty, incremental innovation.
The media and content cycle reinforces the pattern!
When a term begins to pick up steam, it’s simply the law of the land to be picked up buy the media and industry’s analysts, as well as content marketers. Articles, webinars, and social media posts focused on trending-term jargon get a lot of “likes” and comments, and that, in turn, creates a need for companies to use whatever jargon is in vogue at the time.
This loop makes it so that every business out there goes along with using a particular term – even when they are not really convinced of its value – just to stay within the searchable content trends and included in conversations they have to be a part of.
Buzzwords: SEO, Discoverability Tools
On a marketing perspective, it’s also useful from a search visibility perspective to directly connect content and messaging with hot words. If customers start actively looking for specific new words, businesses that use them in their own communications also become more visible, making buzzword use much more than just brand positioning and much more tangible, measurable in terms of bottom-line metrics.
Buzzword Fatigue is a Future Risk
However, relying excessively on the use of trendy language has authentic dangers. People in the audience are now all too aware when it’s just hot air and not real innovation and they are less inclined to trust the individual or organisation who is overhyping the message and this can actually harm the credibility of that person or organisation.
By always playing games with terminology instead of plainly and honestly telling consumers what their product will do, companies may alienate more sophisticated consumers who have become tired with marketers who raise expectations with terms that appear to do more than their job.
Striking a balance between Trendy Language
The best campaigns tend to be a blend – they might use trending terms where it’s a good fit, and then move on to provide honest and comprehensive descriptions of the real term functionality and benefits. The best companies do not simply use buzzwords to “make” a message but, instead, combine with trend-savvy language, proof points, case studies and descriptions that speak truthfully about what their technology does.
This gives businesses the perfect balance of taking advantage of the discoverability and relevance signals trending terminology affords, while retaining the credibility that substantive, honest communication offers.
This means for the buyer
Grasping that dynamic puts buyers in a better position to look at trendy marketing jargon and scrutinize it with a more inquisitive attitude. While acknowledging that it often seems a new term represents true innovation, the best indicator of making the right purchases in a marketplace where word gets in front of the technology is what the product actually does.
Final Word
Tech Twitter is constantly filled with new phrases or buzzwords and there is no randomness behind their use – it’s a conscious strategy of relevance, differentiation, and “evergreen” urgency. Understanding why tech companies create new buzzwords AI marketing strategy depends on can ultimately benefit both the marketer and buyer of a solution looking to make more effective messaging and cut through the hype to see if they really do have a solution.
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