The Starcom Translator
Welcome to a new service from Dr Mumbo, The Starcom Translator. The paragraphs that follow in plain typeface are what has just (honestly, we promise) arrived in Mumbrella’s inbox as a press release. Our attempts at translation follow in italics. And remember, they really did want the outside world to see this.
30 March 2009, Sydney: Starcom MediaVest Group (SMG) has announced a number of key management changes within Genesis, its strategic consultancy division for driving return on investment (ROI) through human understanding.
Starcom has hired someone. They’re not going to have to worry about media buying.
Operating outside of the rush of the day to day, but integrated within SMG, the team focuses on using the human condition as a compass for delivering ‘best-in-class’ communications. Its key obsession is understanding where brands live, and seek to live, within the web-like relationships that exist with consumers and their environment.
They won’t have to worry about deadlines while their colleagues run round like blue-arsed flies. And no matter how much it looks like they’re surfing the Internet for weird shit, it’s all for work. Honestly.
“The consumer landscape is increasingly complex and leveraging humanity in marketing has a critical impact on our clients’ and brands’ effectiveness. The changes we’ve made to Genesis are designed to deliver more meaningful brand experiences for our clients within the human dimension,” SMG CEO John Sintras said.
“Have you noticed how everyone’s on Twitter these days?” said boss John Sintras.
“With a number of new appointments and promotions we have assembled a world-class team that will be integral to the success of clients across the company.”
“With the downturn we’ve been able to get good people a lot more cheaply than six months ago.”
Consumer anthropologist Seema Patel has joined Genesis to navigate the consumer landscape for clients, providing a differentiated lens to understand consumers as humans first.
And we’re tired of people like Naked having all the wanky job titles like consumer psychologist, so we’ve got a consumer anthropologist. Stick that, Adam Ferrier.
Patel’s focus will be augmenting SMG’s approach to insight generation, through SMG’s fusion approach – a unique ethnographic approach to understanding consumer drivers that takes the best from the psychological and anthropological worlds.
But we don’t see any irony in talking about understanding people as humans first while using language like this.
Patel has a Masters degree in applied anthropology and a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology, teamed with a first class background in media strategy. She has worked as a media strategist with BBDO Worldwide and then OMD in New York, before moving to Crispin, Porter and Bugusky in Florida. She then joined Coca-Cola Company in Atlanta as its worldwide marketing communications coordinator and also worked for Coke in Sydney.
Patel is going to have one helluva shock if she has to work with any of our retail clients.
Professor Tim Fry has also recently joined Genesis as an econometrist, on secondment from RMIT University, specialising in the analysis of survey data, market modelling, advertising effectiveness measurement and ‘discrete choice’ modelling.
Tim Fry’s really good with numbers and, being on secondment, he’s not as expensive as you’d think.
Professor Fry will build on the existing Genesis econometric product by evaluating and testing current and new methodologies to better understand markets. He will build up market modelling (such as the estimation of price and advertising impacts), ensure seamless integration between online and offline measurement and evaluate the impact of policy changes for specific clients.Professor Fry has Honours and Masters degrees in econometrics. He also obtained a scholarship to study for a doctorate in Econometrics. He has worked in advertising research and market modelling in London before pursuing an academic career in London and then Australia. He is currently a Professor of Econometrics at the School of Economics and Finance at RMIT.
Did we tell you he’s really good with numbers?
SMG National Strategy Director, Di Richardson said: “These specialised skills will enhance our current offering. We have always had a strong belief that the cross pollination of a diverse set of expertise and experience has consistently driven more differentiated and holistic solutions for our clients. This will strengthen us in our mission to drive best practice communications and provide further competitive advantage for Starcom clients.”
Di Richardson said: “Do I win a prize if I get ‘cross-pollination’, ‘holisitic solutions’ and ‘mission to drive best practice communications’ in the same sentence?”
Other changes have also been applied to Genesis internally, with Emma Montgomery, who was National Accountability and Research Director, promoted to Strategy Director, Sydney. This follows her success in delivering SMG-owned research and accountability solutions which have improved client communications campaigns. Montgomery will drive “best in class” strategic product from the Genesis team this year.
We’ve also had to give out some new titles internally.
Consumer Research Manager, Karen Pearson who currently manages SMGs proprietary research and individual client research projects, takes the lead for key 2009 initiatives including Intentrack. Intentrack is a world-first ongoing research study that was launched last year and is designed to track the relationships between advertising, consumer purchase intentions and actual purchase. Starcom National Strategy Director Di Richardson leads SMG’s strategic and research products as well as the development of Genesis and its new team.
And you wouldn’t believe how much extra we can charge clients if you can give the research a funky proprietary name.
Nice find, Monsignor. That is truly the biggest, wettest pile of linguistic ordure I have ever seen steaming gently under the words ‘Press Release’. And that’s saying something.
It would be delightful to learn that you received a pompous, overblown and sniffy response to your chuckles, but I suspect these heads are too far up their own arses to bother replying to people like you that so obviously don’t ‘get it’…
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Translations are hilarious.. There’s no hiding the truth..even if you bury it in marketing speak..thanks for the laugh!
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I think we’ve found the winner of ‘buzzword bingo’
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Appreciate the effort you have put into the decipher – great for a giggle on a Monday!
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Someone should fire their PR agency, or their PR manager, for allowing this crap to float out into the ether
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Much better in Mumbrella-mother-tongue!!
I look forward to more installments of “The Translator”.
Cheers, Adam
Consumer antiSocial-ologist
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It reads like a highschool essay: if I put lots of big words in there will I get extra marks because I sound intelligent? That would be a NO!
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‘using the human condition as a compass for delivering ‘best-in-class’ communications’… WTF? Tim, surely this was embargoed until April 1st?
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Hi Kat,
Funnily enough, before posting this, I did check none of the names were anagrams of “April Fool”
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
Pru is right, they wrote this crap from the Buzzords Bingo game on our site: http://www.malcolmaulddirect.com/buzzwords/
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That lost me at ROI through human understanding
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Nice plug Tim 🙂 You can also find buzzword bingo at http://weaselwords.com.au/tools.htm. I’m thinking the release has probably earnt a ‘meritus effort’ award at both http://weaselwords.com.au AND http://buzzkiller.net/! (I’m not affiliated with either – just interested in them!)
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most of us have drank 3 Coke-Zeros, right after a Pepsi-Max infused double shot latte from Single Origin…..etc etc ! Got to the office to tell someone [perhaps gullible], “Christ, I had this breakthrough for our business this morning in the shower. I’ve got this great f*(&(ing idea…”. maybe that’s what has happened here! either way, hilarious commentary from all you folks above!
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it burns, it burns, the goggles do nothing for my eyes.
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Outrageously bad. Thanks for publishing, Tim!
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Gold. No wonder my Mum still has no idea what I do if this is the kind of stuff she’s reading about meeja agencies.
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Well their website seems about as useful and insightful as their press releases. It just crashed my browser. Good ROI on human understanding there people.
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Interesting to note that B&T just took it all in and published it – one of the reasons our trade mags are not as good as they could be is that they just take press releases and publish them, which makes for boring reading.
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“The changes we’ve made to Genesis are designed to deliver more meaningful brand experiences for our clients within the human dimension” … are the experiences in the human dimension, or are the clients? And what dimension have we all been playing until now?
Don Watson will be proud.
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We all now live in fear of being caught out in a mumbrella posting.
But this release is just plain undignified. It’s utterly deserving of some amusing interpretations.
Simple language is now an artform.
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Thanks Tim. Point taken, we’ve also enjoyed the laugh at our own expense. That said, they are seriously talented people and we’re proud to have them on board.
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Pony Tail Wanker wouldn’t fit on my business card.
Adam Ferrier
Consumer Psychologist B Arts (psych), B Comm, PG Dip Psych, M Psych, MAPS
State Under 12 Chess Champion, Western Australia
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hahah
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Clearly Starcom have yet to come to understand journalists as humans.
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Well done to John Sintras for coming back in on this one and taking it on the chin. How about reissuing it in English, just to show you can?
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Please, please, please – anyone got any other releases we can have fun with?
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I’m amused that Google ads at the bottom of this page served me a Starcom-related ad. Not the context Starcom’d want, I’m thinking.
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Shit isn’t it.
Just for you Kate.
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And they’ll wonder why they get SFA coverage, and the little they get is less than glowing …
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I love your approach of paying tribute to the crap that PRs sometimes generate. You should run a masterclass with the PRIA!
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I seriously hope that this was not written by a PR person because if it was they should seriously consider a new job – maybe a university professor!
I found it so painful to read that I didn’t get through it all.
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Ah, more laughs courtesy Mumbrella. Thanks again! Hail the end of marketing speak please. I work with SMEs plus big guys occasionally and would have 0 clients if I tried using that ridiculous language with any of them. Highly intelligent people use and prefer plain English any day of the week. Enough!
Tim, more brilliance. thank you.
On a serious note why would an Agency even try and talk rubbish and sound all new age, when…..it’s crap at the basics.
Would just seem to reinforce it’s trying to be something that it hasn’t got a hope in hell’s chance of becoming.
The press release is clearly a symptom of a deeper issue…
Ouch..
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If you want more to poke fun at, do a Google search for any press releases by Bruce Gow.
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