From internet slang to the social arena

Using zoomer-speak in ads can work only when it aligns with a brand's vision. Otherwise, it's just lazy marketing

- Mahalakshmi Prabhakaran

Raves are happening everywhere, but have you ever danced to house beats next to heirloom tomatoes?

This online promo by a premium Bengaluru grocery store about a 'grocery rave' may have been targeted at Gen Z but it had us bone-weary millennials and Gen-Xers guffawing at the thought of dancing in the aisles next to fancy veggies and cheeses. It was followed by the algorithm gods making sure I was constantly inundated by posts, emails and invitations for everything from a 'pet rave' to a 'hydration rave'.

The one that took the cake was a press listing for a 'donut rave': the agenda of this particular 'rave' was that one could munch away on donuts as a DJ spun dance music—well, you'd certainly get a sugar high at this party that promised to be a collision of "music, movement and munching".

"Do they even know what raves mean?" asks Sania Padival, 32, a communications and marketing professional with Schneider Electric, rolling her eyes at this gimmicky appropriation.

"Raves in the 80s and 90s were anti-establishment, underground gatherings where people got together to listen to (house and electronic) music that wasn't approved of," says Padival.

Indeed, while the word 'rave' may be among the most overused words slapped on to events just to make them attractive to zoomers and alphas, it's hard to ignore how words like 'slay', 'vibe' and 'face card' have trickled into the language of lifestyle marketing and advertisements today. It's not hard to see why. Not too long ago, you largely interacted with ads via legacy media such as newspapers, billboards, TV commercials and radio. Today? They are that unskippable 10 or 15-second promo that plays between the Insta stories you are glued to, and marketers reason that to be effective you need to communicate with viewers in a language they connect with.