You losers need to stop saying ‘disruption’
Disruption isn’t just a word, it’s also a theory. A very complex theory. And businesses must meet several conditions before being labelled ‘disruptive’, says Nick Taras.
It’s sickening. You all keep trying to disrupt each other. Nobody can focus on themselves anymore – you just want to disrupt something, somehow.
Every market is apparently being disrupted and it’s hard to tell who’s disrupting who.
The race is on:
I’d love to see you go after the word “content,” the same way you go after the word “disruption.” 😉
The word ‘the’ is used a lot and people don’t have an issue with it.
Same as the words ‘shoe’, ‘exercise’, ‘strategy’, and ‘order’.
Just because a word becomes popular is no reason to mock or belittle it. ‘Disruption’ is a clearly understood phenomenon and one worth exploring. Just because the word is popular does not mean we should stop applying the trained mind to how we can disrupt better.
Please ignore this article.
….disruptive
Couldn’t agree more. You know what was truly “disruptive”? Medicare – yep, universal health care for all regardless of income THAT was truly disruptive and revolutionary in its day.
The wheel was pretty disruptive when it was invented. As was the washing machine and the combustion engine. Economies have changed throughout human history – business models have come and gone. Such is the cycle of capitalism but yet our industry convinces itself that we are living through the most “disruptive” era in history.
The volume of clients that (at briefing stage) request a ‘disruptive’ campaign genuinely surprises me. There’s nothing disruptive about drinking tea, a new brand of toothpaste or product flavour.
The simple fact is, disruptive is the new ‘viral’. Clients are requesting campaigns that fit a buzzword, whether or not they meet objectives and make an impact to the brand or not.
Like with anything, the people that are most disruptive and are truly changing the game and subverting an industry would never define themselves as such, or make poor attempts to be disruptive.
Spot on Shaun.
Fire.
Agriculture.
Housing.
Magna Carta.
Printing Press.
Electricity.
Sanitation.
Postage.
Lighting.
Train, car and aeroplane.
Radio, TV.
Computing, internet.
Oh, and fixies, beards and thick-rimmed glasses.
The idea of “Disruption”, applied to marketing and advertising, was developed by Jean Marie Dru of BDDP Paris in 1991. It was presented to the BDDP global network in early 1992. Dru went on to publish several books on the subject.
At the time BBDP stated “Disruption is not a pretty word. But it clearly states what we want to do for our clients: destabilize the conventions of their competitive environments”.
At the time the term “discontinuity” was considered as an alternative, as in the geological term Mohorovičić discontinuity.
I hope that this gets the Harvard guy off the hook.
JV
Spot on! It’s additionally funny that agencies talk so much about disruption. They talk to clients about disruption while obscuring the fact that no agency has ever disrupted anything in the history of the world (except for people’s lives). It’s tech companies that disrupt thing, not agencies. And it never will be.
Except, no. Either you haven’t understood the argument here or you don’t fully understand what content strategists do.
In any case, agencies shouldn’t even be talking about disruption. Agencies don’t disrupt — they service clients.
What Christensen first identified he called Disruptive Technology; it was Andy Grove that embellished the terminology on Christensen’s behalf.
And there is a single sentence in one of the best and oldest articles ever written on the topic (http://www.newyorker.com/magaz.....iants-fail) that explains why he named it Disruptive Technology.
That sentence is: “Christensen called these low-end products “disruptive technologies,” because, rather than sustaining technological progress toward better performance, they disrupted it.”
That’s really all you need to know. Develop something that becomes so wildly popular that it sends everything else to the back row FOREVER and you’ve got Disruptive Innovation.
PS For those that would like to explore further, we discuss the matter at length (sometimes) and in detail (also sometimes) at the group in LinkedIn called (what else?) “Disruptive Innovation”.
Maybe see you there.
https://www.linkedin.com/groups/1837479
Disruption is just a word, used to replace older words such as breakthrough.
It ‘s not an idea or concept or process.
Ad industry navel-gazing at its absolute peak. Maybe you could debate this in person over a Fairtrade pale ale at the Cricketers?
Meanwhile, the grown ups can continue to sell stuff, rather than debating semantics.
Can I offer couple more additional buzzword to tear them apart:
– storytelling;
– engagement
Experience