In line with seasonality

Every July the weekly report arrives with the same sentence in the commentary box. Performance in line with seasonality.

I have written that sentence. I have received it from agencies, read it in reports from teams I ran, and seen it from the platform side on accounts I had never spoken to. In summer it is the most-used sentence in the region's reporting, and the wording is fine. What gives it away is that it would have survived any number underneath it.

Sales down a fifth: in line with seasonality. Down five per cent: in line with seasonality. Flat, which in a Gulf July would deserve a paragraph of its own: in line with seasonality. The sentence excuses whichever number turned up, and describes none of them.

Which means it was written before the data came in. Sometimes literally, in a template with the figures left blank, but always in the sense that no result could have changed it. And everyone in the chain knows. The account executive who typed it knows. The manager who forwarded it knows. The director who skimmed it on a phone knows.

The sentence that could not survive a different number is the one with a person behind it. Down twelve against last July's eight, and here is what I think the extra four is. Nobody can write that in advance, which is why it so rarely gets written.

Commentary that could have been written before the data came in was. A report nobody had to think about is a report nobody on either side is reading.