At the beginning of a new marketing project, knowing what’s behind the idea of the thing your company wants to do can save you from unnecessary pain in many ways.
Let’s be clear: companies don’t always launch products, start campaigns, or create specific types of content because it’s the smartest thing to do or because it’s the best way to connect with customers.
Sure, companies make and launch and do stuff every day for lots of reasons:
Sometimes — they’re doing something because a competitor did it. This is the corporate equivalent of keeping up with the Joneses.
Sometimes — they’re doing something because they think it’s something they do, because its always been done. Legacy companies that have been in business 50+ years are the worst at this. It could be a good idea. Maybe not. Who knows? Hopefully someone cares.
Sometimes — they’re doing something because a CEO or CMO had a conversation with someone at a conference somewhere, and they think it’s a good idea. Does actual research support this decision? Maybe not, and sometimes that doesn’t matter, based on who’s making the project request!
Let’s acknowledge it, let’s get over it, and let’s spend that mental energy, instead, on how to use it for your benefit.
Getting clear about why your company really wants to do the thing it wants to do can give you the kind of context you can use to make better decisions. It’s the kind of clarity that lets you keep things in perspective:
You can decide how much you’re really want to emotionally invest in it beyond what you need to do to get the job done.
You can decide how to prioritize and assign the work, based on the parts of it that are really important.
It can even give you valuable insight in how to present the work you’ll develop, based on what you know the higher-ups may be looking for.
Now, of course, all of the mental machinations that result from this kind of clarity should happen — and should remain — squarely in your head only.
Don’t be the person in the meeting who blurts out “Why are we even doing this?” in a bratty way. Don’t blab to co-workers about how dumb the project is and how you all shouldn’t be doing it. Definitely don’t make a Tik Tok all about how this is a bad decision. (That should go without saying, but the way some of you treated your WFH scenarios, I feel the need to say it out loud.)
Also don’t let being honest about the true motivation behind a project deflate you. Good things can still come from it, and it might even be an opportunity for you to shine in new ways.
Maybe you recreate the thing the competitor did but challenge the team to put your brand’s unique spin on it based on a new insight you bring to the table. It could actually be better than anyone thought while still “checking the boxes” on what was requested.
Maybe you reach out to the people that actually keep track of and understand the stats and metrics of how things perform and use those real data points to help influence future decisions.
Maybe you take photos (if it’s in-store) or screengrabs (if it’s digital) that allow you (and higher-ups) to see in plain sight if something is working or not, in a more objective way. (An enterprising client partner of mine hired me to do this, at a large scale, one time. With my audit in hand, they ended up revamping the entire tentpole campaign and got a double-digit sales increase as a result.)
Maybe you just go along with it. Que sera sera. Make the out-of-touch brand video with an expensive LA production company. Fine. But then get with your in-house video editor to get cutdowns you can actually use in some new posts.
This kind of clarity gives you the freedom to let the motivation be what it is. You do what you can to make it better, while preserving more of your best time, energy and attention for other projects that truly deserve it.
