NEW YORK — After years of throwing the term around like confetti at a programmatic wedding, advertising industry insiders have finally admitted they no longer have the faintest idea what “cookieless identity graph optimisation at scale” actually means.
Once hailed as the future of digital marketing, “cookieless” has become so omnipresent that, according to linguistic analysts, it now appears in ad industry communications more frequently than the words “and,” “but,” or “therefore.” In fact, in one recent International Marketing Board conference transcript, the word appeared 437 times in a single keynote — mostly in the same sentence.
“Ten years ago, the word cookieless had power,” said industry historian Laura Fenn, referencing the term’s first recorded appearance on the back cover of Bon Appétit magazine in 2015. “Back then, it meant ‘without cookies.’ But like all things in marketing, it now means absolutely anything — including ‘with cookies,’ ‘with first-party cookies,’ or ‘with whatever cookie-shaped signal I can grab before the regulators notice.’”
Fenn added, “It’s reached the point where even our AI content generators hesitate before using it, and that’s saying something.”
Several industry veterans confessed that the word has infiltrated not just their professional jargon but their daily speech. “We’ve been asked to add the word cookieless onto everything we say, not just publicly but to each other,” said one weary programmatic executive. “I have colleagues who apply this directive literally — they talk about cookieless holidays, cookieless lunch, and even cookieless cars. One guy called his wedding a cookieless union of hearts. It’s lost all meaning.”
The confusion extends beyond “cookieless” to the rest of the phrase. “Identity graph optimisation at scale sounds impressive,” said another insider, “but I’m 80% sure it’s just Excel with a logo on it.”
When asked whether his company performed “cookieless identity graph optimisation at scale,” a mid-level marketing manager paused for a full 30 seconds before responding. “I don’t think we do that in HR,” he admitted. “But I wasn’t sure, so I did what every good company person would do — I said yes. I even added it to my LinkedIn headline.”
The Advertising Standards Council has announced plans to release a glossary clarifying these terms, though insiders fear it may just make things worse. Early drafts reportedly define cookieless as “the same as before, but with more slides.”
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