Jargon Throwdown

March 30, 2011 • 10:59 am • POSTED BY David Burden

We all know the branding world is rife with jargon, so we all become desensitized to the overused adspeak and words like “integrate”, “curate” and “lexicon” become part of the everyday… well… lexicon. But every once in a while certain individuals take the bullshit to a whole new level.  Witness these two examples, first from one Ben Silverman, founder of branded content company Electus (counted among Adweek’s 2010 Media Agencies of the Year…for what I am still not quite sure) who is also partly responsible for the terrible 2003 over branded reality series “The Restaurant” and temporarily bringing Knight Rider and American Gladiators back to NBC.  The second is from Jeff Rosenthal, founder of the Summit Series, part TED Talk part luxury getaway, blending innovation, relaxation, extreme sports and activism.  This year’s event will be hosted on an ocean liner and include conferences, shark tagging and kiteboarding (note: carbon credits will be purchased to offset the ocean liner’s fuel emissions. Phew. We can all breathe easier now.)

“As a history buff and extensive traveler luckily still in the ‘demo,’ I try and anticipate and build trends to drive tipping points,” says Silverman, the former head of NBC’s entertainment division. “I like to change it up and integrate all of these learnings: From my work bringing back the single-camera comedy and mockumentary style after seeing the oversaturation of reality—for which I’m partly to blame—to the creation of The Tudors when everyone had turned their back on the historical drama genre, to business models from format distribution to digital content and programming with advertiser insight. The best is the combination of the avant garde and the accessible.” (Adweek, Dec 19, 2010)

“We’re a Large Hadron Collider for people of our generation,” says Jeff Rosenthal, Summit at Sea cofounder. “We help the most epic people in the world do more epic shit. It’s all work and all play, 24/7,” Rosenthal says. “When you have lucid-dreaming gurus and past presidents doing things they’ve never done before, it leads to crowd-accelerated innovation for everyone involved. Our goal is to catalyze as much change in the world as possible by connecting dreamers and doers.” (Fast Company, April 2011)

Winner?