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Clompilers Unite! You Have Nothing to Lose Except Maybe Everything…

or Vice Versa, Depending On How Good a Partner You Are (or Aren’t)

Rob Norman — CEO, Brit, renaissance marketeer… and now locutionist. At the IAB’s Agency Summit last week, he loosed on the world a new, and in our world necessary, noun: clompiler.

Why necessary? Because there’s nary a conversation in the marketing-media landscape these days that doesn’t touch on the issue of co-opetition — the increasing tendency in decentralizing industries for competitors in one arena to become collaborators in another. Yet there doesn’t seem to be a good term for those that engage in co-opetition. “Co-opetitors” never did seem to cut it.

Enter Mr. Norman and his word: “clomplier.” The Chief Executive of Group M Interaction defines it on his blog thusly: “A company which in its various guises is a client (cl), competitor (omp), and supplier (lier) to another company.” For an example, I’d be remiss if I didn’t refer you to Rob’s site.

Mr. Norman describes himself as the only Brit capable of explaining the infield fly rule to his mother. I believe it.

Authors

Author
Randall Rothenberg
Executive Chair
at IAB