OPEN THE KIMONO
The image of corporate executives gently loosening and dropping
their kimonos in advance of Geisha-like acts with one another is
very disturbing. But it, too, may be secretly apt. The failure of
so many deals suggests the due diligence described by this phrase
focuses too much on the heat of the moment and too little on the
morning after.
TOUCH POINTS
Here because it's so widely used and sounds so dirty,
particularly in the context of many personal-care categories. But
it may really be useful language because, unlike so many entries on
this list, it describes something real, using fewer words or
syllables than the alternatives. Even so, please keep your touch
points inside the kimono unless asked otherwise.
360
Marketing that, like a serial killer perched in a tower, aims in
all directions. Also known as holistic, which apparently does the
same thing, maybe using herbal medicines. We still like former
Colgate-Palmolive Co. Chairman-CEO Reuben Mark's joke that the
combination of the company's shotgun marketing with its 360
approach could create self-inflicted wounds.
THE NEW NORMAL
A catchall for the dismal post-Great Recessionary world. Let's
face it, this feels normal to almost no one and good to even fewer
people. In marketing, where rules and conditions of social media,
mobile and other digital marketing evolve constantly, it's
particularly meaningless. Or, maybe that's the ... new ... normal
-- aieee!!!
ALL THE WAY TO BRIGHT
We're not sure how this weirdest of phrases came to be. But it
sounds like reports of near-death experiences. Perhaps any
marketers who fully master the Zen-like intricacies of social
media, where they no longer own brands or shill for them but profit
immensely by bathing in the warmth of collective goodwill, are
close to meeting that great light.
SOCIAL
Is there any media left that's not? Or at least that doesn't
delude itself into believing it is?
SUSTAINABILITY
A good concept gone bad by mis- and overuse. It's come to be a
squishy, feel-good catchall for doing the right thing. Used
properly, it describes practices through which the global economy
can grow without creating a fatal drain on resources. It's not
synonymous with "green." Is organic agriculture sustainable, for
example, if more of the world would starve through its universal
application?
MONETIZE
Besides not really being a word, it describes something that's
often not a strategy. Its roots stretch to the dot-com era, where
you lured traffic with free services, then figured out how to get
paid. Many, notably those in print journalism, are still working on
that last part. Then again, so is much of social media.
AT THE END OF THE DAY
This pernicious weed of language takes six words to say what
"ultimately," or perhaps better still, nothing at all, could convey
better. At the end of the day, we'll all be all the way to
bright.