What do they do?

I’ve been around advertising my whole life. My old man was in the business until he died. And I’ve been making a living writing ad copy in one form or another since May 19, 1980.

Over the past ten years or so, the business has turned into one I no longer understand. Not only do we seem to produce more and more work that fewer and fewer people see, we’re also told our work is about data not human empathy. Secondly, the highest-paid people in agencies now (holding company chieftains) don’t have any creative, media or marketing expertise. That’s like the General Manager of a baseball team not knowing a bat from a ball.

Third, there are now a whole slew of job titles I’ve never heard of. No matter how hard I try to discover what roles are incumbent upon these titles, I can’t seem find an answer.

Here are some of those titles and my best guesses as to what those people do.

Chief Risk Officer—Earns $1.7 million in salary and $2.4 million in deferred compensation to send out three emails a year about COVID, two about an impending storm, and one about Russian bots phishing in the agency’s network.

Chief Creative Officer—The CCO forms the overall creative sensibility of the agency. Also competes with the seven other CCOs management has hired in case one of the other six CCOs doesn't work out. 

Content Strategist (A)—A person content with strategy.

Content Strategist (B) —A person whose sole content strategy is recommending content that is strategic.

Principal—Someone who is hired as a principal because they have no principles.

Chief Technology Officer—Sends you emails that they are working on the wireless problem, the printing problem, the wireless printing problem and the fact that you can't understand anything the help desk says. Also responsible for 94-digit help desk "ticket" numbers and 1980s servers that run the timesheet system. 

Talent Acquisition Associate—An HR person who believes other people can be acquired like a rotisserie chicken or firewood. Once acquired, the Talent Acquisition Associate shifts focus and becomes the Talent Ignoring Associate.

Executive Creative Director (A)—A creative director promoted to a bigger title because the agency refuses to give a bigger paycheck.

Executive Creative Director (B)—Someone who changes four words in a script so the commercial is “theirs.” Also writes in name on awards list.

Project Manager—AKA, Associate Director of This-Is-Due-An-Hour-After-the-Briefing-and-You’re-Out-of-Scope.

Associate Producer—Anyone who will associate with a producer.

Digital Strategist—A strategist made up entirely of pixels.

Integrated Producer—A producer who once watched Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech on YouTube.

Consultant--Newspeak for unemployed.

Head of Customer Experience--A collaborative team-player who works with others to create and maintain a cutting-edge ecosystem of integrated customer disappointment.

UX--A person who says 20 times a day, 'no, you need a UI person for that,' and 40 times a day, 'no, that's CX, not UX.'