In a special live edition of Marketing Week’s Room 101 recorded at Festival of Marketing: Transform, three top marketers share what they would like to see ditched from the industry forever.

For Sophie Wheater, CMO of Giffgaff, it’s a toss up between sustainability marketing “for the sake of content” and words that are made up for words that already exist, which she said “drives me mad”.

Think ‘solutionise’ rather than solve, ‘decisioning’ rather than making a decision and ‘learnings’ rather than lessons. “We have this beautiful English language. Why the hell are we making up crap buzzwords that actually just undermine whomever uses them?” she asked.

Next up was Colin Lewis, director of Retail Media Works and Marketing Week columnist, who wanted to banish brand purpose to the Marketing Week Room 101.

He said he particularly despises the “brand bandwagoners” who hop from one cause to another. However, his biggest bugbear is when people say there is a “war for talent”, as he believes there is a wealth of talent out there but brands are narrowing their window to a tiny age bracket of people with very specific digital skills.

Bidding on rival brand names consigned to Marketing Week’s Room 101

Meanwhile, Alicia Grimes-Gibson, founder of AG+G Consultancy and board advisor to Ok Mentor, wanted to get rid of marketers who hijack food trends such a gluten-free, dairy-free, plant-based and end up promoting unhealthy products.

She said while it might come from a good place, when marketers get involved it can “turn into something else completely”. Grimes’ second nomination was pointless meetings, the number of which has risen dramatically since the pandemic.

It’s now your opportunity to vote for what you would like to see banished. There was a live vote at time of recording, but don’t let that sway you!

Watch the show to hear the rationale behind each nomination and then make your vote below. Marketing Week will reveal the three things that will become marketing trash soon.