Stop Phubbing.
Macquarie Dictionary.
We were asked by Australia’s national dictionary, the Macquarie, to remind people of the relevancy of a dictionary in an age when such things are getting left behind.
The idea was to find a global problem so recent, it didn’t have a word for it yet. Then invent that word, put it out there, and show that a single word has the power to change everything.
The problem was poor smartphone manners. And the word we created was Phubbing: The act of ignoring the person in front of you in favour of your smartphone.
We launched the word, then used the word to spark a social movement. And then with media and public discussion of Phubbing at its peak, we released a branded short film ‘A Word is Born’, about the origin of the word, on the launch day of the 6th edition of the Macquarie Dictionary.
Language is always changing