By Rick Stanton
A while back, I wrote a column about how people in marketing seem to have a knack for creating our own language. In most cases, this is a defense mechanism to make it appear as if we know something the client doesn’t know.
The term “bullshit” comes to mind.
As I struggled to find a topic for my next column, it magically appeared! On Friday, Nov. 27, 2020, on page A10 of the Seattle Times, there was an article titled “Humaning. B4H. The strange language of modern marketing.” (see first link below).
The article begins with the following: “Are you ‘humaning’? It’s hard to know. ‘Humaning’ is not a word meant to be used by real people in real conversations. It’s just the latest of many ungainly terms from the world of marketing.”
Once upon a time, I was hired by a small agency that was pitching a rather large account. They wanted me to review their creative approach.
During our first meeting, the guy who was the creative director asked me, “How do we connect the brand pixels to the mind pixels of key consumers so they live the brand with us?”
Huh?
I said to try speaking English, for starters.
Beside “humaning,” here are some other notable new bits of jargon in The Times article:
“Adlob.”
“Brand heat.”
“Phygital.”
And I kid you not, “Snackable” content.
These all are embarrassing on every level imaginable. Shame on the meatheads who come up with such tripe.
In a time like now, when being a straight shooter matters more than ever before, the last thing we need is more bullshit.
We’ve had a lifetime of that over the last four years.