Marketing·42·Added 2026-09-26

Vanity metric

A statistical graph that climbs beautifully upwards, carefully chosen to distract stakeholders from the fact that actual sales are flat.

What they actually mean

"People are looking at us, though we have no idea why."

Heard in the wild

"Our brand engagement is up four hundred percent, which is a fantastic vanity metric to show the board."

More from Marketing

Dark social

The untraceable sharing of content via private channels, usually consisting of employees messaging each other to ask if the company's new campaign is as embarrassing as they think it is.

Our latest promotional video is getting a lot of traction on dark social, though mostly via encrypted WhatsApp chats.

Translation

People are mocking our brand in private group chats where our tracking pixels cannot find them.

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To greenwash

The delicate art of redesigning a corporate logo with a soft leaf motif to divert attention from the fact that the company’s main export is non-recyclable plastic.

"If we sponsor a local beach clean-up with a catchy hashtag, we can successfully greenwash our Q4 distribution metrics."

Translation

"We bought a handful of carbon offsets from an unmonitored woodland in Devon to ease our collective guilt."

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To leverage

A highly versatile verb used to avoid saying the word 'use', thereby making a mundane administrative task sound like physics.

"We need to leverage our existing brand assets to drive deeper organic engagement."

Translation

We are going to send another newsletter.

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