Jargon is a plague that has ravaged the marketing and media industries. Too often internal, insidery lexicon is used as a way to mask processes and befuddle the masses. To aid our collective comprehension, we’re releasing an updated version of the Digiday Dictionary, a collection of de-mystified phrases, nouns and concepts favored by thinkfluencers, creatives, publishers and ad tech wizards. If you’ve got more you want to see added to the list, tweet them at us.
Agency of record: Fall guy
Agency review: Free ideas
Branded content: An ad
Brand newsroom: Marketers with J-school degrees
BuzzFeed: Media for millennials living at home
Circle back: Send yet another unsolicited email
Close the loop: Get the credit card number
Collaborative creative company: Cheap agency
Comic-Con: The new SXSW
Consumers: Humans
Content studio: Copywriters with J-school degrees
Cord-cutters: See: Millennials
Cord-nevers: Gen Z
Dynamic creative: Retargeting
Engagement: When you get a person to like, favorite or comment
Facebook: Your parents’ social network
Gawker: A New York City-based Socialist collective
Google Glass: Ghost town
Idea consultancy: Agency
Idea factory: Agency
Incognito mode: Porn tool
Influencer: Idiot teenager with more than 1,000 followers
Internet of things: Tweeting toilets
LUMAscape: Clogged arteries
LinkedIn: Email marketing company
MCN: A YouTube ad network + branded content studio + talent management firm (but don’t call them an MCN)
Mashable: Tech news without the tech
Mic: Watered-down news for snake people (See: Millennials)
Millennials: Snake people marketers love
Mobile World Congress: Apple’s no-go zone
Mobile-first: Slept through first 10 ‘years of mobile’
Multiplatform: Can’t get it right anywhere
Native advertising: An ad
OTT: TV you don’t have to pay (the cable companies) for
Oculus Rift: Porn tool
Omnichannel: A buzzword that’s impossible to correctly use in a sentence
Periscope: Piracy
Pivot: “Hope it works this time”
Point of purchase: Cash register
Premium video: Publishers reaching to get more ad dollars for their video
Publisher: Anyone with an Internet connection
‘Real time’ content: An image you see 10 minutes after the joke is over
SXSW: A waste of time
Sequential targeting: where retargeting should have been five years ago
Slack: Unsolicited GIF machine
Snapchat: “We’re more than dick pics!”
Sponsored content: An ad
Storytelling: An ad
Surprise and delight: The same thing we did last year
Television: The big screen in your living room connected to your Apple TV
Twitter: Mob rule
Vice: An ad agency based in Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Viewability: Good luck with that
Vine: Six seconds of … six seconds of … six seconds of …
Viral: “Post it to YouTube”
Vox: Media for millennials with jobs
YouTube stars: (Rich) teens with a webcam
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