What's Killing Your Communications?

 

Years ago I attended a seminar by a performance management expert, and while I'm sure he shared lots of useful tips, there's one simple story that I always come back to.

He told us that one of the most common comments he heard from managers seeking out his advice was, "We have a lot of dead wood in this company that we need to weed out."

And his response would always be:

"Well, were they dead when you hired 'em? Or did you kill 'em?"

It's a story that comes to mind when I think about what happens all too often in the marketing communications process. Someone in marketing or PR develops a written piece—whether it's an ad, an email campaign, a news release or even a value proposition—and it sounds different. It stands out from the crowd of jargon-y, meaningless, me-too speak that everyone in the market seems to be putting out (often as they're describing how they're "unique").

It catches your attention, and wonder of wonders, it even sounds like something a real human would say.

And it never sees the light of day.

That's because it gets slowly strangled to death by Committee Editing.

Management wants to review it. They feel that what's really missing is a sentence about how the company delivers value-maximizing solutions. In fact, they used that term with a client once, and the client loved it.

While they're at it, they decide to run it by a few of the departments to see what they think. The product development team points out that many of the 47 specific product features weren't included—those definitely have to be incorporated somehow. And why didn't anyone mention that the solution is market-leading and state-of-the-art in addition to being value-maximizing? Other departments chime in with stories of their favorite marketing campaigns EVER, and why don't we do that, too? 

Eventually, the committee-edited and completely diluted communication comes out, and it sounds like everyone else who's ever strung together a series of hollow adjectives and industry catchphrases.

And management wants to know why all of the company's communications are so lifeless.

Were they dead on arrival, or did you kill 'em?