Is this more than just semantics?

Thanks to my buddy Hash who helped me out with this.  I am giving a talk in March about the issues below.  Any other ideas would be more than welcome.

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In the business world today, we refer to the world our customers, brands and products live in, as a “market”.  Such clinical terms desensitise us to culture and products and services that really motivate people.

We replace “people” with “targets”, “culture” with “markets”, “communities” with “segmentations” and “desires” with “insights”.

The question I would like to investigate today is “Is this more than just semantics?”

If our goal is to understand what really matters, we should start by realising that as brands, we have to exist in peoples lives authentically and that means as a strategic marketing and brand building business, our own language and posture has to be of the world, not some foreign “speak” that only exists in business school classrooms, corporate cubicles and boardrooms today.

I would argue that our old language and definitions have changed, if not become redundant and we, as a business are slow to adapt, let alone lead and shape brands for our clients into the future.