Sorry, what?


We were at a conference in New York recently when one of the panelists said:

“We can use our research tools to find the white space around the insight that builds a conversation piece in that endemic vertical.”

Sorry, what?

I like a game of bullshit bingo as much as the next person but I had to write this one down for later reference so that I could decode it. Sadly, Google Translate doesn’t do management speak to English yet so I made my own deductions.

The speaker was in publishing so the “endemic vertical” refers to topics like “Health”, “Politics” and “Sport” on a popular website…it’s the new “silo”. The “white space around the insight” could translate to “focus” on the insight and “builds a conversation piece” is about a popular discussion in the thread that follows an article. So what was said was:

“We use research to focus on popular topics.”

That makes sense. It’s easy to follow and I can imagine that most people would have no issue understanding what was meant given the context of web publishing so why not just say that? Too often people get trapped in industry jargon because they don’t think in terms of their audience, only in terms of how they understand something.

The role of advertising is transfer ideas from one person to another and the key to that is simplicity of language. Why use ten words when five will do? Why use jargon when a common phrase is available? It’s just a matter of making sure your audience will understand and appreciate what is being said. 

It’s not dumbing down, it’s clarity.