Using marketing terms to describe people, their needs and the way they communicate, makes us, marketers, reduce the reality of communication into a linguistical cloud that troubles our views on people and the way they connect.
Marketers are not the only ones using their own dictionary to capture reality in a very specific speak, of course.
MDs have patients or clients, governments have citizens, marketers have target groups, recipients, fans, prospects, leads, consumers etc.
Language is powerful but it can also be destructive and reduce complex realities to simple words that enable us to see clear in the chaos but at the same time make us blind to the reality.
Why don't we just talk about people and dialogues instead of customers, prospects, leads and media?