Stupid Title Watch: SVP Thought Leadership and Market Strategy?

OK, so I made the thought-leader title up. But it wouldn’t surprise me if someone out there holds it.

Is it just me, or are titles in the e-mail marketing industry getting somewhat out of control?

Whereas back in the dot-com era, titles simply got ridiculous—you know, senior vice president, product wizardry, chief product evangelist and the like—these days they just seem to be getting longer.

It appears no one is satisfied to just be a good old marketing manager, vice president of marketing or chief marketer any more. Nope, now they’ve got to be senior vice president of marketing, audience development and strategic direction.

What, marketing wasn’t difficult enough on its own? And somehow the extender on the title describes an activity that falls outside marketing?

A random search through the piles of business cards on my desk revealed the following actual titles: senior vice president and general manager of e-mail solutions; channels development manager, marketing intelligence; director, technology care and safety; global vice president of deliverability and privacy services; business development, platform business management; director, deliverability and ISP relations.

Aren’t deliverability and ISP relations kind of the same thing?

Now take my title: editor-at-large. Yeah yeah, I know. It should be editor who is large, but we’ll leave that alone for now. Editor-at-large is a nice, short title. It means management has a reasonable amount of respect for me, but not enough to risk putting me in charge of anything that matters.

Here’s an idea: No title should be more than four words long. That gives us all the room we need for all the old standards such as CEO, CFO and CMO, but also allows some leeway for titles like senior vice president, marketing and marketing manager, audience development.

In any case, last week during an e-mail exchange with Kay Cavender, e-mail service provider Silverpop’s director of corporate communications—see? Four words, including “of”—I mentioned I was doing a column on ridiculous titles.

In one e-mail, I said I planned to lobby for the title of senior vice president and thought director for newsletter, magazine, and column strategy and development.

Cavender’s reply: “How about Grand Poobah? You just impress me as that sort of guy. I can see you in the hat now.”

The message came with an attachment. Click here to view it.

OK, I think I’ll shut up now.