The buzzwords creatives are ditching in 2025 (and what to say instead)

Ah, the creative industries—where everyone is an innovator, a disruptor, and, apparently, a master of “synergy”. But if you’ve spent more than five minutes in a meeting or scrolling through design briefs, you’ll know there’s a whole lexicon of tired, overused buzzwords that have lost all meaning.

We’re all guilty of using them at one time or another, whether in an over-excited email or trying to fit in with the slightly cringy LinkedIn lingo. So, let’s take a moment to discuss the creative industry’s ten top offenders—words that sometimes sound impressive but often say very little. It’s time to give them a proper send-off so we can all start speaking like humans again.

Creative clichés we’re leaving behind in 2025

1. Purpose-Led

Let’s start with a big one: “purpose-led”. Ferrgood founder Teresa Ferreira isn’t pulling any punches here. She argues that all companies should have a purpose and that if they don’t, they’re probably not going to last too long. Instead, Ferreira uses the word “purposeful”, as she sees it as more direct and less like someone trying to show off.

Brand writer Sarah Farley shares a similar view, adding that brands have hijacked the word “purpose” for virtue signalling. Sure, it’s important to be kind, responsible, and sustainable—and many brands start out that way, where the founders see a genuine societal or environmental problem and set out to fix it with their product or service,” she says.

But, once a company goes public or chases profit, its “purpose” often shifts into something less “save the world” and more “make shareholders rich”. It’s hard to take those high-minded statements seriously when their gender pay gaps tell a different story, right?

2. Strategy

Quite a few creatives seem to be pushing back on the word “strategy,” and who can blame them? It’s the catch-all word that’s supposed to sound important, but it often gets used so loosely that it’s basically meaningless. Toward’s head of operations and strategy, Matthew Jackson, calls out those who use “strategy” to describe vague hopes and goals, like: “We’re strategic, we sell t-shirts, and that’s the best strategy ever.” Maybe we should just start calling it a plan or be prepared to go a little deeper.

The Workroom founder Brigid McMullen also throws “strategy” into the bin, claiming that people use it without specifying which kind of strategy they mean (business, creative, digital — who knows?!).

“This word is literally useless until and unless we use it accurately,” she says. “We should be more pedantic about what sort of strategy we mean to clarify and communicate effectively. As Lewis Carroll said: ‘You should say what you mean and mean what you say!’ The word ‘plan’ would be far more effective.”

3. Premium

If you’ve ever worked on a design brief for a tech company, you’ll know that “premium” is a go-to descriptor. Coralie Carré, creative director at DEPT, argues that this term is often overused and misunderstood, especially when applied to intangible products.

For many of the brands she works with, the first thing that comes to mind when they say “premium” is something that looks like Apple. Carré explains: “We often work with tech-focused companies that don’t have a physical product to show. With no tangible item to touch or hold, “premium” can become difficult to understand and abstract to translate without falling into dark mode, minimal layouts and some 3D polished visuals.

But what will happen if we ban “premium” from our presentations altogether? We should maybe find out.

4. Sustainability

Now, this is a big one. Sustainability is probably the buzzword of the century, and as a result, businesses, media and consumers are all experiencing a bit of green fatigue.

Alan Gilbody, owner of Slice Design, explains why he is sceptical of this particular word. “Too often, brands trot it out when they want to seem eco-friendly without doing the heavy lifting. When you look at things like seemingly sustainable paper bottles, it’s hard to see that they’re only solving one part of the issue and that they’re actually creating more problems down the line.

“The best solution for packaging design may not be what other people term ‘sustainable’, but it is the best and safest option for whatever the product is,” says Gilbody. “What brands should be saying is that they want to reduce waste and provide better, more available, more effective recycling or circular packaging solutions.”

Ultimately, this one should be all about actions, not just words, which creatives clearly want to see more of this year.

5. Bring the Energy

OurCreative’s creative director, Jon Dignam, mentions his aversion to the phrase “bring the energy.” Yes, energy and enthusiasm are great, but when they’re used as a generic demand in meetings or creative briefs, they’re cringe.

According to Dignam, hearing “bring the energy” has the same effect on him as the ticking clock on Hook (yes, the Dustin Hoffmann version). It’s more akin to something a high-school cheerleading coach would say, not a creative director or client trying to inspire meaningful work.

Also, saying “bring the energy” is like saying “make it pop” — everyone will nod along, but no one has any clue what that means. Let’s retire this phrase and ask for something with more substance.

6. Brave or Fearless

OK Social’s head of partnerships, Jimmy Gordon, is absolutely done with the whole “brave” or “fearless” routine. He feels these words are often thrown around in creative briefs to make the work sound edgy or bold, but when the actual output is pretty, well, beige.

Using “brave” and “fearless” sounds great on paper, signalling that you’re edgy and not afraid to push boundaries, but if your work doesn’t do that, these words are fluff. What’s worse, they give clients and teams the illusion of being bold without actually challenging anything.

“Bravery” should mean breaking the norm, experimenting with new ideas, or stepping into uncharted territory. It should be about risk and, yes, possibly failure. But in a world where every other campaign is labelled as “brave” or “fearless,” those terms have started to feel like a marketing ploy.

So, what’s the solution? If you’re going to talk about being brave, show us the bravery! Take risks and challenge norms; maybe the work will speak for itself.

7. Empowerment

When it comes to buzzwords that get under the skin, “empower” is a big one. Outside copywriter Elizabeth Lepro argues that empowerment is often used to mask the power that already exists within people.

Clients love the idea of empowering their audiences, but in reality, it’s often just jargon for “we’re asking you to do something but in a nice way.”

Lepro highlights that the language around empowerment often overlooks the agency and power that people already have — especially when it’s used in top-down, imperative ways. Instead of using “empower” to make it sound like the brand is bestowing some divine right upon its audience, why not focus on recognising the agency people already have? It’s about supporting people’s choices, not acting as if you’re the one who’s permitting them to make those choices.

8. Authentic

Authentic is another empty vessel word that is begging for context but often lacks it. Authentic to what, or to whom?

Sibling Rivalry director of creative strategy Mika Saulitis says: “If you’re articulating a brand’s positioning and the word ‘authentic’ bubbles up, try to get to the root of what that means.

“Fill in the blank: ‘We’re authentically _____.’ Usually, that adjective offers more substance, clarity, and specificity than ‘authentic’ ever will.'”

Maybe we can save this one and put it in the metaphorical recycling bin—it deserves a second chance!

9. Culture

JvM London executive creative director Charlie Hurst thinks we’ve all been overusing the word “culture” to the point where it’s lost its magic. He asks: “Why does culture have to be the word we hammer into every brief conversation and idea? It’s become the default buzzword, wheeled out like the holy grail of creativity.”

Sure, every creative wants to produce work that resonates with the cultural zeitgeist, but creativity done right surely doesn’t need to scream “this is for culture” to actually be part of it.

Hurst suggests giving culture a rest and focusing on creating work that “naturally belongs in culture, rather than overloading the process with empty chatter about it”. As with most of these buzzwords, he implies that if the work is good, it will speak for itself.

10. Storytelling

Lastly, Sho Kubota, strategist at Wolff Olins, makes an excellent point about “storytelling”. Like so many others, Kubota feels that what started as an evocative term has now become a marketing tactic (ironically) devoid of any real story.

“The word that once conjured epic poems and fireside tales now introduces decks about customer journeys,” he says, adding that its overuse has “cruelly eroded the very promise that the word once fulfilled”.

Instead, he often turns to industries that honour the true spirit of ‘storytelling,’ like video games and manga, testing the words’ Brand Lore’ and ‘Worldbuilding’. “They show what’s possible when creators build worlds that readers, customers and partners actually want to explore.”

Can an app help us to banish buzzwords for good?

Coincidentally, when we called for creatives to reveal their most hated buzzwords, we also heard from Matt Oxley, the founder of the new Ick App. Alongside his wife and business partner Sophie, Oxley runs a B2B marketing agency and found they were constantly editing the same tired phrases and buzzwords for their clients.

“We see this type of hyped up but meaningless, jargon-filled, and sometimes just boring language all the time for years,” says Oxley. “AI has amplified it, but it’s not AI’s fault. AI has just put it on steroids and made a creative writing problem much worse.”

To banish meaningless buzzwords once and for all, they designed the Ick app to help people spot and rethink the dreaded jargon, unoriginal phrases, and overstated terms that have clogged up copy for too long.

He says: “We are B2B marketers, and we’ve stuck to what we know, so it’s really designed for business and professional use.

“We think it will be really helpful for other marketers, as well as founders, product teams, and even professional copywriters.”

For many, it’s easy to spot those overused words—the challenging part is finding an alternative. Unlike many writing tools that just offer a random list of synonyms or suggest a “better” way of saying something, Ick is all about keeping the human touch and giving you raw feedback on the words and phrases that don’t do justice to your message.

Oxley explains that it’s a straightforward, no-frills editor where you paste or type your copy. If it contains any problematic words from the app’s growing database, you’ll get a gentle nudge. The words are flagged under three categories: Jargon, Unoriginal, and Overstated. Ultimately, they designed it to help themselves, their clients, and the wider creative community write with more clarity, creativity, and originality.

Inclusivity was also a consideration, so the Ick app includes several different “modes” designed to make the writing process more comfortable and user-friendly. Ick has tried to cover all the bases, whether you need a dyslexia-friendly mode, a focus-driven lightbox mode, or a night owl mode for late-night creative sprints.

So, if you’re tired of fighting against the “buzzword avalanche” that often plagues business and creative writing, the Ick app might be the tool you didn’t know you needed. Keep an eye out for its launch in the next few weeks.

On a more general note, it’s clear that we all crave honest and specific communication. Maybe some of these terms don’t need to be discarded forever; they just need to be more carefully considered and used in the right way.

In the long run, it will probably mean that creatives can spend more time doing the work they love rather than talking about it!