Why Marketing Terminology is the Least “Marketing” Thing Ever.

Last week, Marketing Week 's article by Johnny Corbett made a sage point about the rise of marketing lingo.  The article: ‘It’s Time we Admit Marketing Jargon is Holding the Profession Back’ struck a deep chord.  Having worked hard on an English degree and Masters, long words and specific terms are no strangers.  However, in the years since I left academia, I wonder when was the last time I used terms like, anagnorisis, or peripeteia.

Admit it, some of you Googled those terms.  There’s nothing wrong with that.  Please don’t take it as some weird flex about literary terms.  If you did Google it, you will have found the definitions easy to understand and written in an accessible way. 

Admit it, some of you didn’t care enough to Google those terms.  Literary terms are not in your remit.  You read those words, or hear them out loud, you would feel outside of the conversation. 

Isn’t that just the least “Marketing” thing ever?

The problem with jargon…

For the most part, jargon is fine.  It’s a set of signifying terms that can demonstrate, briefly, that you know what you’re talking about.  You’re in the industry, you know what Conversion Rate Optimisation is.  Superb.  The problem arises when industry jargon becomes used like a secret language.  Jargon has become the secret handshake that allows you into your industries’ Masonic Hall.

On the face of it, that might not seem like a bad thing.  What’s the harm of displaying your knowledge and prowess?  If there’s one thing, we want our stakeholders to know, is that we know what we’re talking about.  But, in truth, there are many ways that marketing jargon could be our undoing.

It can damage the industry’s reputation.

One of the reasons I was drawn to marketing in the first place, is that it seemed like a good professional forum from which to utilise my creativity.  I clearly wasn’t rivalling Stephen King with novels, and I haven’t had one person cite a poem of mine.  Marketing is a crucible wherein creative people can put their ideas into action.  We want creative people to join marketing teams and agencies, it will bring forward new ideas and keep the industry moving.  We don’t want terms like “synergy” getting in the way of that.

Look at the legal and financial industries.  They use language in such a way that it is often inaccessible to anyone from the outside.  They take ambiguously termed words and give them precise definitions within their own industry.  This makes reading their literature difficult.  When language is used in such a way, people can only feign interest for so long.

Such language can be elitist.

Have you ever sat in a meeting room when the lingo-wars start?  It’s a strange battle wherein two people gradually use more inaccessible language to appear more intelligent.  It’s fun to watch, but it is also quite excluding.  That’s when the buzzwords really start to grate.  The problem is nobody wants to hear about it.  We just want the information these terms are smothering.

You can wield terms like “category heuristics” and smack your PowerPoint slides with them if you like, but where is it getting you?  More business will get done if you make your presentations more inclusive.  Imagine how fast your team will learn and improve if they can just be provided with a little context.

Marketing has always been about communication and reach.

This, really, is the crux of the issue.  You cannot assume that all of your stakeholders have the same knowledge as you.  You might be talking about your distinctive brand assets, and the rest of the team are just inquiring about your logo.  People have always been at the centre of success in marketing, so why are we shutting them out?

Marketing is about reach, storytelling, and communication.  This can’t evolve without people joining in every conversation.  More to the point, if we can’t keep our own people engaged in conversation, how on Earth do we expect to be able to hold the attention of the teeming prospects and customers out there?

Corbett questioned, “What’s the point in understanding something so deeply, and yet making it so hard to actually explain to anyone?”  For me, I want to push that a bit further.  How can we hope to grow and evolve an important industry if we are making communication much more difficult?

If you want to discuss marketing in a way that even I can understand, then contact me on 01604 698 948, or email me on adam@tj-marketing.co.uk with your enquiry.

Adam Ward

Marketing Exec