Chronic Acronym Anxiety, or CAA. Formally: the progressive inability of brand operators to make a decision without first consulting a spreadsheet full of three-letter abbreviations, none of which agree with each other, and at least two of which mean entirely different things depending on whether you’re talking to your agency or your CFO.
Symptoms include: blank staring during quarterly reviews, passive-aggressive Slack replies to anyone who mentions ROAS without a benchmark, and the distinct feeling that you’ve been sold a dashboard when what you actually needed was a plan.
“Are You Suffering From CAA?”
The retail/ecommerce industry has industrialised confusion. It wraps common sense in enough jargon that operators stop trusting their instincts and start chasing metrics they half-understand. CAC, LTV, AOV, ROAS, OMS, WMS, PDP, CRO, BOPIS, BNPL, D2C, B2B2C, the acronym stack is now so tall that the actual question (”is this working?”) gets lost underneath it.
Sumo Blue’s positioning: we speak human. We translate the noise back into decisions.
“If you’ve ever sat in a Monday morning review and genuinely couldn’t remember what your business actually sells... you may be suffering from CAA.”
CHRONIC ACRONYM ANXIETY (CAA) Affecting 1 in 3 brand operators. Possibly more. We stopped counting.
“Symptoms include: confusing your ROAS with your ROI. Knowing your CAC but not your customer. Optimising your PDP while your product sits in a warehouse in Düsseldorf.
In severe cases, building an entire omnichannel strategy before deciding what you’re actually trying to do.”
“CAA is not your fault. You were handed a dashboard when you needed a direction. You were sold a framework when you needed a plan. The industry gave you the acronyms. Nobody gave you the answer.”
“At Sumo Blue they treat CAA the old-fashioned way. They ask what’s working. They ask what isn’t. We tell you the truth in plain English, or whatever language you actually think in. No jargon. No deck with sixty slides and one vague recommendation. Just common sense, applied with intent.”
Sumo Blue. For operators who are done being confused by their own business.”
[SUPER SMALL DISCLAIMER TEXT, blink-and-miss-it, classic pharma style]: “Sumo Blue is not responsible for the sudden clarity that follows. Side effects include: better decisions, shorter meetings, and the vague feeling you should have done this sooner.”
