Sometimes the best communications advice is to stop communicating.
This is an inconvenient truth for those of us who offer communications advice for a living. Invoicing for the production of a new website, billboards near a major arterial, digital ads – that’s all easily defensible. Here’s the link to your new website! Here are your estimated impressions! Look how big your logo is! Payment due in 30 days.
I can’t charge a client for the lack of a campaign. And yet sometimes the best advice I can give is to not campaign.
Recently I was gratified to see such a strategy play out. I can’t tell you who the client was, because the strategy involves shutting the hell up while the world carries on. And they have. And it’s working. (World’s quietest huzzah!)
The greatest victory is that which requires no battle.
Sun Tzu – The Art of War
Sun Tzu said “The greatest victory is that which requires no battle.” Ol’ mate was talking about avoiding the unnecessary expense of horses, battlements, and feeding foot soldiers in 6thC, but his advice applies just as well to your digital spend. We have so many things we want to fight about! So many crises that need the rage and enthusiasm of the working classes. When we (rarely) come across a thing that can be achieved without a fight, we should seize that opportunity.
This is the tough thing about working in progressive politics; I actually want the organisations I work with to succeed. If my client list looked more like KPMGs, then I suppose like KPMG I would have no scruples about charging six-figure sums for slide decks that just say “cut costs and increase profit”.
But so long as I work for the good guys, I am going to keep advising some clients to turn down the noise and just take the W.
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