Definition

In marketing and analytics, the act of using data to craft a persuasive narrative that proves your point (whether the data fully supports it or not). It's the art of selective truth-telling with charts that make up the story you want to tell.

Example Usage

The analyst was telling a story with those bar graphs—technically accurate but carefully chosen to suggest the campaign was more successful than it actually was.

Source: Common industry terminology

Related Terms

Beginner

brand positioning

The deliberate crafting of how a brand occupies a distinct place in the consumer's mind relative to competitors, usually involving flowery language about being 'authentic' and 'innovative.' It's astrology for products, except with focus groups.

📣 Marketing / Advertising
Intermediate

copyediting

The unsung heroic work of fixing everyone's embarrassing grammar mistakes, typos, and formatting disasters before they get immortalized in print or pixels. It's the specialized skill of making writers look smarter than they actually are while ensuring 'your' and 'you're' don't get tragically confused in a national publication. Every content marketer thinks they don't need it until they publish 'public' with an unfortunate typo.

📣 Marketing / Advertising
Beginner

competitive analysis

The systematic evaluation of competitors' strategies, strengths, and weaknesses to inform your own marketing approach. It's professional stalking with PowerPoint deliverables.

📣 Marketing / Advertising
Beginner

Call to Action

A button or phrase designed to make someone do something immediately, like a digital drill sergeant screaming BUY NOW at your eyeballs. The entire internet is just an arms race of increasingly desperate calls to action.

📣 Marketing / Advertising
Intermediate

remarketing list

A curated audience of people who previously interacted with your brand, creating a permission structure to follow them around the internet like a well-intentioned stalker. It's not creepy, it's marketing.

📣 Marketing / Advertising
Beginner

hard bounce

When your email hits a brick wall because the address doesn't exist, was typed wrong, or the domain vanished into the internet void. Unlike a soft bounce, this failure is permanent and your email is never coming back from buying cigarettes.

📣 Marketing / Advertising

Translate This Term

See “telling” in Corporate Speak, Gen-Z Slang, Pirate Speak, and more.

Try the Translator

Share This Term

Post on XShare on FacebookShare on LinkedIn

Discover a Term

Intermediate

soft cell

A padded jail or prison cell designed to prevent inmates from harming themselves or others during episodes of extreme di...