A (Brief) Modern Advertising Lexicon. #2 in a Sporadic Series.

Agency-of-the-year: An agency in the top 95% of all agencies.

Brain-storming: 52 minutes of caveats, eight minutes of unexecutable ideas.

Brand mission statement: A concise declaration of things a brand will never do or values they'll never uphold.

Brave: A client who approves an ad with fewer than 14-seconds of product shot.

Customer-centric: A focus on a customer’s centricity. 

Customer-engagement: Junk mail or commissioned salespeople.

Data ethics: A surveillance state oxymoron.

Deck: The sole deliverable for 97% of all people in advertising.

Engagement: Any contact with any sentient creature, whether they want it or not.

Experience: A word appended to other words to complicate communications and confuse the viewer. (ex. ‘How was your bathroom experience?” “How was your GoGo experience?” “How was your medical test experience?”

Future: A time that will never arrive. And no one will be there when it does.

Humble: Modern boastfulness.

Hustle: Vaynerchukian synonym for flatulence.

Influencer: A ubiquitous loudmouth.

“It's awesome”: How to say, “It’s been three days and I haven't had time to look at the work you sent” without admitting that it’s been three days and you haven't had time to look at the work that was sent.

Linked-In: A job-hunting site for people who will never get another job.

Narrative: Random language, usually laden with jargon, containing no discernible meaning or practical purpose.

Raise: An increase in pay. A relic of advertising’s Golden Age. Eliminated by holding companies delivering shareholder value through the undervaluing of their own employees.

Robust: Expensive banners or websites that no one will look at and are hard to produce.

Rockstar: What’s needed for any and every open hire.

Scrum: 14 people in a conference room for no apparent reason.

Vision statement: The first 51 minutes of an hour-long presentation.

Views: The number of people who accidentally click on your pre-roll.

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