First of all, if you're good in Math and Science, consider another field of work, like Finance, Technology, high paying market research jobs, engineering etc.
For the rest of you, you are going to need to learn the Marketing jargon that gets thrown around in meetings every single day of our existence. Ok? Here's a list for you.
1) Leverage (quite possibly the most overused term in all of marketing)
Most often means to reuse or recycle. For example: Since your team already produced this great piece of creative work, we could perhaps "leverage" it for our project.
I'm pretty sure this is a misuse of the term "leverage."
2) Brand Equity
How much stock you have among your target audience. Example "Brand X has great "brand equity" among Millenials."
3) Brand Positioning
Often represented by a statement that describes what a brand stands for in the market place. This statement needs to show that the company is providing real value to consumers that other brands aren't. Sometimes it's confused with Brand Promise, which is what a company promises to its consumers. Sometimes it's confused with Brand Values, which are the values a company lives by. And sometimes it's confused with Company Mission, which means... something else. Most of the time, all these things are confused by me.
4) To Position
The angle that you are going to use to explain something to someone so that the person a) understands it and b) agrees with it.
5) Creative Platform
An idea on which to base every piece of creative you develop.
6) Architecture
An organizing principle that can define... a process, or how your brand's products fit together, or how different messages fit together, or how different elements within the brand fit together. Basically, it's a chart that organizes all sorts of different shit.
7) Framework
Is kind of like an architecture.
8) Ideation
The act of coming up with ideas.
9) Concepting
The act of coming up with ideas.
10) Brain Dump
Throwing out ideas, often improbable, in an unorganized fashion.
11) Mind Meld
A meeting of people who have various types of expertise with the goal of coming up with ideas.
12) Come-to-Jesus
A meeting that usually takes place among more senior folks when a project is totally fucked up and tensions are high. The point of this meeting is honesty (a trait for which Jesus was famous), which is often used as a last resort.
13) Executional Elements
Things within an actual piece of creative, like a logo or an editing transition, or a color. "Executional," still to this day, has a red squiggly line under it in all word processing programs.
14) Strategy
This is a word that encompasses pretty much everything and nothing. Often times, it is used to designate anything that is not execution. People who are strategic are met with high regards because they are higher level thinkers who are capable of setting a vision and speak well in meetings. People who are more executional (squiggly line) are lower level thinkers who can't see the forest through the trees but are good at getting shit done. When too depended upon, strategy can cause paralysis that hinders execution. When done right, strategy provides a blueprint to help creative teams come up with ideas and guides execution. The perfect marketing person possesses just the right mix of strategy and execution.
Got that?
15) Low Hanging Fruit
The most obvious and easiest target you can go after with a new product/service. (Get it? Low hanging fruit is the first to drop to the ground because it is ripe for the picking. Super sophisticated stuff right here).
16) Touch Points
The different media that are used to "touch" the consumer (not inappropriately though). Like a billboard in Times Square or a spot on TV.
17) Mediums
The most well-spoken among us still don't know that media is the plural of medium. And because they are my superiors, I don't correct them. Mediums are people who can communicate with spirits.
18) Activate
To bring a marketing program to life "out in the real world." Basically, this is a fancy word for sponsorships and events.
19) Channels
Simply put, this means media. I guess the nuance here is that Channels represent the conduit by which you will reach your target audience. In other words, media.
20) Data-Driven everything
Example, Data Driven Insights: This means that you will find Insights among your target audience thanks to research you conduct among said target audience (often times quantitative research as opposed to qualitative research).
Or Data Driven Company
The brand is a company that makes decisions based mostly on research and numbers and less so instinct and common sense.
21) Deliverables
What you actually need to do (deliver) when all is finally said. If you don't understand a brief or a request, the deliverable list can be a shining beacon of clarity.
22) Circle Back
Basically, to follow up with someone after a meeting because who wants to talk about it right then and there? Nobody.
23) Reach Out
To get in touch with someone, often times, via email. Reach out is left vague enough that the method of communication is left up to the person who is doing the reaching out.
24) "I have a hard stop", Or "I have a back-end"
A diplomatic way to say that this meeting cannot run over because I have another freakin' meeting right after it. K?
25) "Let's take that offline"
A diplomatic way to tell someone who is derailing a call, either through irrelevance or way too much detail, that they need to shut the hell up.
26) Influencers
A target group that advertisers go after because they believe that they will influence others in choosing their brand. Red squiggly line all the way.
27) Getting up to speed
To catch up on a project.
Some of this jargon can definitely be useful shorthand for people who talk about this stuff everyday. But because people in marketing talk a lot, we constantly need to find different words to say the same thing. It's kind of like when an on-air reporter uses the word "Ascertain" right after they use the word "Assess." Ascertain also buys them an extra vowel of crucial time (like that time when the Super Bowl stadium lights went out, "Ascertain" was flying around all over the damn place). Finally, never forget this valuable lesson from Nas: "Money over bullshit" y'all. Words to market by.
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