Keep calm and carry on phubbing

Printed dictionaries are dying and we all know why. But does a modern language like English want to lose a authentic brand that helps stimulate the internet with new ideas with more credibility than twerking, vineographer or faping?

While its competitors have stopped printing, Macquarie Dictionary of Australia set out to prove that the art of keeping a language modern and revenant is still a very valuable one. Even if a lot harder.

Together with McCann Melbourne, the Dictionary brand took a whole year to seed a newly-invented word into the language. Phubbing is the act of snubbing someone in a social setting by looking at your phone instead of paying attention. Phubbing was invented in May 2012 at the University of Sydney and then used by the Macquarie Dictionary over the past year as a piece of content and seeded into our lexicon and culture. According to the video uploaded this month, the word has travelled the globe and added awareness to the behaviour.

A long con is not an expression that many marketers would want to be associated with however I think Macquarie Dictionary of Australia has succeeded in creating content that demonstrates the brand through behaviour. I love the idea that the idea is simple and a classic PR technique but the execution is highly innovative.