This week, some reassurance.
After considerable research, I can confirm that lots of other people (including me) don't get it either. A straw poll held at a dinner - the sort of rigorous research you've come to expect - revealed that VCs, bankers and dotcommers agreed.
Last month, I went along to AdTech, the annual exhibition and beano for geek marketers. Far from being a pejorative term, I'm talking here about the new generation of left-brain/right-brain-balanced individuals, who are as comfortable with two-tailed t-tests as they are with approving TV scripts, and are widely predicted to inherit the earth (if you have to ask, it's fair to assume you're not one of them).
So I went along looking forward to having both sides of my brain stretched, and to seeing some inspiring examples of technology that could make a real difference to how we do what we do. As you've probably guessed by now, it was disappointing. Not because the breakthrough technologies that are changing the way we reach consumers weren't there. Rather, because it was so hard to tell. Five minutes spent in front of most stands yielded little in the way of meaningful information; there were platforms, solutions, even platform solutions, each one of them promising, and some guaranteeing, ROI.
So much garbled tech-speak, so much buzzword bingo. And so much 'so what?' A 'proprietary semantic and contextual web-content vetting technology'; a 'global Real Time Network' (their capitals). I've no idea what either of these things is, though I've given considerable thought to whether the latter means that the Network sells Time and it Really exists, or whether the Network sells Real Time.
What worried me most were the digital agencies, since this is my background. I can't bear to cast my mind back to some of the wallpaper we said about ourselves, but it's reasonable to assume that, if nothing else on a 'physician heal thyself' basis, agencies should be able to market themselves.
I found one agency that describes itself as 'fresh thinking and highly energetic', which felt exhausting. Next door, one offered 'customised online advertising campaigns' (as opposed to the off-the-peg ones most supply?). Then there was the agency selling 'a creative mix of online solutions' - presumably 'the mix', rather than 'the solutions', carrying the bulk of the creativity. It's easy to poke fun, because none of them says anything worthwhile or meaningful about its authors - they are trite, garbled, or just plain daft. The point, though, is that these people would not know a proposition if it jumped up and bit them on the nose.
The words 'compelling', 'distinctive' and 'memorable' are alien to these slogans - especially that of the company that had paid a doubtless significant sum to have its huge banner hung from the balcony over the hall.
In big letters, it proclaimed 'Digital Marketing Platform', thereby potentially applying itself to 90% of the companies represented there.
If there is a single lesson I have learned in 20 years of working in, building and investing in businesses, it is this: the most successful company is not the one with the best product, but the one with the best story.
Hence the reassurance. That hall contained some of the most brilliant thinking, able design and inspiring technology, but there were few coherent narratives among all the groundbreaking code and pioneering business models. What they lacked more than anything was the marketer's ability to tell a story - with whichever side of their brain they do it.
So if you fancy working in the tech and internet sector, now could be the time. Please. They need your help.
Andrew Walmsley is a digital pluralist.
30 SECONDS ON ... The t-test
- The t-test is a research method used to assess whether the means (ie the averages) of two groups are statistically different.
- The two groups assessed are a treated group (hence the term t-test) and a control group.
- The equations and applications involved in t-testing are difficult (nigh-on impossible, actually) to describe in layman's terms. It is often used in location testing, where researchers assess whether the average distribution of a population matches that in a given hypothesis - for instance, to determine whether people in a certain area are more likely to have high blood pressure.
- The t-test was created in the early 20th century by a chemist working for Guinness - he devised it as a way to monitor the quality of stout.
- The brewer was so secretive about its industrial processes that when the chemist published his formula in a scientific journal, he had to use a pen name, 'Student'. His real name was William Sealy Gosset.