Fighting nonsense marketing jargon with nonsense marketing jargon
In this excerpt from Eat Your Greens, Ryan Wallman argues that if nonsensical language reflects nonsensical thinking, it’s no wonder that marketers are generally held in low regard.
I think I speak for many people in our industry when I say that it sometimes feels as if we’re losing the war of words. And, by extension, the war of ideas.
The enemy in our midst is what might be called marketing-speak. Or utter bullshit, to use my preferred term for it.
And the worrying part is that it’s not going anywhere. If anything, it’s becoming ever more pervasive. Just take a look at any marketing publication.
For many people, the response to all this is: so what?
‘Ryan,’ they probably think to themselves after my fifth unhinged rant of the day, ‘give it a rest, will you? Does it really matter if people want to sound like pseudo-intellectual drones?’
Fair enough. But you and I know that marketing jargon is not (just) a silly source of amusement. It corrupts communication and it inhibits clear thinking. You need only read a big company’s website or a CMO’s quote to appreciate the obfuscatory nature of this kind of language.
And this gets to the nub of the problem for you and me. If nonsensical language reflects nonsensical thinking, it’s no wonder that marketers are generally held in low regard.
Frankly, marketers often make themselves sound silly. And while that might sometimes put them beyond satire, what follows is a selection of satirical (if not downright facetious) comments on the marketing industry.
First, here’s my attempt to decode some of the more common terminology used in modern marketing.
| The term | What it means |
| Customer-centric marketing | Marketing |
| Omnichannel brand amplification | Advertising |
| Disruptive | Slightly different |
| Innovative | Not innovative |
| Key demographic | A group of customers chosen on a completely arbitrary basis (note: always millennials) |
| Influencer | A 14 year-old who makes YouTube videos |
| Upstream influencer | The 16 year-old sibling of a 14 year-old who makes YouTube videos |
| Pre-contemplative prospect | Someone who couldn’t give a f**k about your brand |
Some marketing terminology, however, is so heinous that it deserves a more rigorous going-over.
One of these is the phrase ‘customer journey’. Sure, it may have started out as a worthwhile concept, but suffice it to say that it has since been hijacked, beaten and left for dead on the side of the customer road.
Travel advice for your customer journey
1. In times past, being a customer was a simple affair. You saw something and you bought it – or perhaps you thought about buying something for a while, then bought it. Those days are over. Now you’re embarking on a journey, and you’ll need all your stamina to survive it.
2. Before you leave, ensure that your buyer persona is registered with the relevant authorities. If you attempt to go on a customer journey without a recognised buyer persona, you’ll confuse the hell out of any modern marketing executive.
3. Plan your itinerary carefully. As with other kinds of journeys, it can be all too easy to end up somewhere you never intended to be (online click-throughs, for example) or to wander around endlessly and still not find what you’re looking for (any IKEA visit).
4. Make sure you pack some sturdy shoes, because the grounds for customer journeys can be flimsy to say the least.
5. It’s a good idea to learn a few words of the native lingo. A simple “Hello, my name is Savvy Millennial” will endear you to the local marketers.
6. Stay safe. Notorious roaming gangs such as ‘Ad tech’ and ‘Remarketing’ prey on unwary travellers. Do NOT interact with them under any circumstances.
7. Always carry protection. Despite what marketers will tell you about loyalty, customer journeys are often promiscuous occasions.
8. Remember that customer journeys tend to follow rivers of marketing bullshit, which are rife with faecally transmitted diseases. Marketers are immune to these and even seem to revel in them, but customers are highly susceptible to their effects. If you develop verbal diarrhoea characterised by terms such as ‘touchpoints’ and ‘seamless experiences’, seek medical attention immediately.
So ‘customer journey’ is on the nose. But you can be sure that there will soon be more bullshit to replace it, and the best place to keep up with it all is at a conference.
Like this one.
The Emperor’s New Clothes Conference 2016
Marketing by the cynical, for the gullible
| Time | Topic |
| 7.30 – 8.30 | ENERGY SUPPLEMENTATION EXPERIENCE (FORMERLY ‘BREAKFAST’) |
| 8.30 – 9.30 | Making the simple complex: how to baffle people for profit |
| 9.30 – 10.30 | Emojism: storytelling in the age of illiteracy |
| 10.30 – 11.30 | Completely deluded: taking virtual reality to its logical conclusion |
| 11.30 – 1.00 | SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTIONAL OPPORTUNITY (LUNCH PROVIDED) |
| 1.00 – 2.00 | Beyond brand love: how do you get customers to actually have sex with your product? |
| 2.00 – 3.00 | Advertising is dead: why hypercontextual data-driven programmatic gamification is the future |
| 3.00 – 4.00 | Rectal insertables: the next generation of wearable technology |
| 4.00 – 5.00 | Buzzword innovation: what’s next in the bollocksphere? |
Ryan Wallman is associate creative director at Wellmark.
This article is an extract from his contribution to Eat Your Greens – fact based thinking to improve your brand’s health.
Hear from the the managing editor of Eat Your Greens: Fact Based Thinking To Improve Your Brand’s Health, Wiemer Snijders, at MSIX on November 9th in Sydney. Wiemer will be disclosing the top seven insights the book has to offer.
Love it! From the shameless self promotion to the disruptive customer journey.
User ID not verified.
??
User ID not verified.
I’m about halfway through Eat Your Greens and there are some brilliant chapters on thought provoking ideas and confronting research.
This chapter wasn’t one of those – but I will admit was still a bit of a laugh.
User ID not verified.
The profession does itself no favours with this stuff. On the other hand some clients see this language as the hallmark of a professional so it influences buying decisions. Damned if you don’t.
User ID not verified.