Isn’t it time for a moratorium on using the word innovation in advertising where it’s been relegated it to a nearly meaningless, over-hyped buzzword.
As an example, a recent commercial shows a young father-to-be who realizes that his two seat sports car is not exactly going to be family friendly. He proceeds to walk around the car and tug at each corner to stretch the car into a performance sedan.
The commercial then dubs it a four door sports car. No problem there, but where they lose me is when they proclaim the car to be “Innovation for daddy – Innovation for all.”
I’m sorry. It’s a clever commercial, but the idea of a four door sports car is far from being innovative. The performance sedan has been around for ages now as has the branding.
I’m not saying that the company isn’t innovative or that the car doesn’t have some innovative features. It’s just that labeling everything you market as “innovation” dilutes the true meaning.
It’s time to take back innovation from the advertisers and return its meaning to the powerful capability that it is.
What do you think?