Your Job Is to Make Customers Care, Not Keep Management Comfortable

There’s a meeting.

The social team is presenting results.

Things are going suspiciously well.

Watch time is up.

Engagement is up.

Shares are up.

Organic reach is up.

The creator content is outperforming.

Younger audiences are actually watching.

Someone has even bought something.

Excellent.

So naturally:

“We need to talk.”

Right.

What’s wrong?

“Well, management has some concerns.”

About the performance?

“No, performance is great.”

Okay.

“The content.”

What about it?

“There isn’t much branding.”

Right.

“And one of the creators has tattoos.”

Okay.

“And there’s a guy wearing a beanie.”

Sure.

“Indoors.”

Jesus Christ.

We’ve Made a Terrible Mistake

It appears we’ve been making content customers enjoy.

When really we should have been making content management enjoys.

Apologies.

Easy fix.

Remove the tattooed person.

Get the beanie off.

Logo top right.

Actually, bigger.

Bring the product in earlier.

Make the talent more aspirational.

Clean up the language.

Remove the weird edit.

Make sure everyone looks like they could comfortably appear in the corporate values section of the annual report.

Perfect.

Does it still perform?

Who cares.

Management loves it.

Who Is the Marketing Actually For?

Ridiculous question.

Customers.

Obviously.

And yet a surprising amount of marketing gets optimised for people who will never buy the product.

The CEO.

The board.

The GM.

Legal.

Brand.

Sales.

The CEO’s daughter.

Someone called David who attended the meeting because the calendar invite was forwarded to him and now has extremely strong feelings about the font.

These people matter.

Of course they do.

They run the business.

They understand things the agency doesn't.

They have responsibilities.

But they are not automatically the audience.

And somehow that distinction disappears the second they don't personally like the work.

“I Wouldn’t Watch This”

Okay.

Are you the target audience?

“No.”

Interesting.

“I just don’t think it’s funny.”

Are you the target audience?

“No.”

Right.

“I don’t really understand why they’re talking like that.”

Are you the target audience?

Still no?

Excellent.

This is going well.

One of the strangest things about marketing is that we can spend months defining an audience, researching them, studying their behaviour, analysing their media habits and developing work specifically for them.

Then someone significantly outside that audience walks into the room and says:

“It’s not really for me.”

Correct.

We did it.

Management Feedback Has Gravity

Not all opinions enter a meeting equally.

The Social Coordinator says:

“Our audience loves this creator.”

Interesting.

The Creative Director says:

“The joke dies if we explain it.”

Noted.

Eleven months of social data says:

“This style consistently outperforms.”

Useful.

Then the CEO says:

“Not sure about the beanie.”

Stop everything.

Suddenly we are discussing knitwear.

Why?

Because hierarchy has gravity.

The more senior the person, the more their personal reaction can quietly become a strategic requirement.

Nobody writes:

CEO personally dislikes hats

into the brief.

That would look insane.

Instead it becomes:

“Can we explore talent styling that feels more aligned with the premium positioning?”

There.

Strategy.

The Most Dangerous Feedback Starts With “Personally”

“Personally, I prefer the other one.”

“Personally, I’d like to see the product earlier.”

“Personally, I wouldn’t click on this.”

“Personally, I find him a bit annoying.”

Fine.

People are allowed opinions.

Management too.

But creative review becomes dangerous when personal preference gets dressed up as customer insight.

Your CEO may hate TikTok.

Your customers may spend two hours a day there.

Your CMO may dislike that creator.

Your audience may watch everything they make.

Your Head of Brand may prefer beautiful polished cinematography.

Your customer may consistently respond to someone talking into an iPhone in their kitchen.

Neither person is wrong for having a preference.

The question is:

Whose preference are we trying to optimise for?

The Customer Has Already Voted

This is where social makes the whole thing particularly absurd.

Sometimes we aren't guessing.

The content is already live.

People are watching it.

Sharing it.

Commenting.

Clicking.

Buying.

We have behavioural evidence.

Then someone internally says:

“I’m not sure people will respond to this.”

They are responding to it.

“Yeah, but…”

No.

Look.

There they are.

Responding.

It’s like standing in a packed restaurant while somebody says:

“I just don't think people want Italian food anymore.”

Mate.

There are 140 people eating pasta behind you.

Success Can Still Feel Wrong Internally

This is one of the stranger problems good marketing creates.

Sometimes the work that succeeds externally doesn't look like what success is supposed to look like internally.

It isn't polished enough.

The creator doesn't look like the people on the mood board.

The brand isn't prominent enough.

The humour is stranger.

The comments are chaotic.

It feels a little out of control.

And that's uncomfortable.

Traditional advertising gave brands enormous control.

Every frame.

Every word.

Every casting decision.

Every hair.

Every product angle.

Social asks brands to participate in environments where control is much weaker.

Creators have voices.

Audiences answer back.

Comments take the piss.

People remix things.

Your brand can become part of a joke you didn't write.

That's frightening if your job has trained you to believe control equals good management.

But sometimes the loss of control is the reason people are paying attention.

Keeping Management Comfortable Is a Very Different Objective

Imagine putting it in the brief.

OBJECTIVE

Create a campaign that makes senior management feel reassured that all brand guidelines have been correctly followed.

TARGET AUDIENCE

Seven executives in a Microsoft Teams meeting.

DESIRED RESPONSE

Nodding.

KPI

Nobody says, “I’m just not sure about this.”

We'd make very different work.

And yet that can effectively become the invisible brief.

The creative needs to survive the internal system before it ever meets the customer.

So naturally, creative teams start adapting.

Not consciously.

They learn.

Don't present that kind of idea.

Management won't go for it.

Don't use that creator.

Brand won't like them.

Don't make the joke too weird.

Legal will ask questions.

Don't show the brave option first.

We'll spend the whole meeting defending it.

Eventually the approval process doesn't even need to kill interesting ideas.

People stop bringing them.

This Is How Organisations Train Creativity Out of Themselves

That's the bit worth worrying about.

Every time a good idea gets killed for a vague internal reason, the team learns something.

Every time data is overruled by hierarchy, they learn something.

Every time the work gets watered down until management is comfortable, they learn something.

Not about customers.

About survival.

They learn what gets approved.

And people are very good at adapting to incentives.

Soon your agency knows what not to show you.

Your social team knows which trends aren't worth suggesting.

Your creators know you'll rewrite everything anyway.

Your junior people stop offering opinions.

Everyone becomes incredibly efficient at producing the kind of marketing the company approves.

Then management asks:

“Why doesn't our creative feel as innovative as our competitors?”

Mystery.

Could be anything.

“But Management Has to Protect the Brand”

Yes.

Absolutely.

Senior marketers should challenge creative.

Bad ideas exist.

Off-strategy ideas exist.

Creators can get things wrong.

Social data can mislead you.

A post getting views does not automatically mean it is good for the brand.

And sometimes the weird feeling a senior marketer has about something is the product of 20 years of excellent judgement.

That matters.

The answer isn't:

DATA UP. CEO SHUT UP.

The answer is to separate judgement from preference.

“This gets views but creates the wrong association for the brand.”

Interesting.

“This creator performs but their audience isn't commercially relevant.”

Useful.

“This joke undermines the positioning we're trying to establish.”

Let's discuss it.

“I don't like the beanie.”

Less compelling.

Good Management Should Make Better Work Possible

The best senior marketers don't exist to make creative safer.

They create the conditions for good creative to survive.

They clarify the strategy.

They protect the team from random feedback.

They know which risks matter.

They understand which guidelines are sacred and which are flexible.

They bring evidence into the conversation.

They make decisions.

And when someone senior asks:

“Why are we doing this?”

they can explain it.

Not panic and change it.

That's leadership.

Because sometimes protecting the brand means saying no to the agency.

And sometimes protecting the marketing means saying no to your boss.

Guess which one is harder.

The Person Most Likely to Complain Cannot Be Your Target Audience

This is the trap.

Large organisations naturally optimise around visible risk.

A senior stakeholder complaining is visible.

Legal raising a concern is visible.

A customer writing an angry comment is visible.

You know what isn't visible?

Indifference.

The 800,000 people who scrolled straight past.

They don't email.

They don't request a meeting.

They don't escalate.

They don't say:

“Hello, I’m writing to formally complain that your advertising made me feel absolutely nothing.”

They just leave.

Which means the internal system can systematically prioritise avoiding complaints over creating interest.

That's a terrible trade.

Because you can build a campaign nobody objects to.

And nobody remembers.

Sometimes Your Audience Will Like Things You Don’t

This should be completely normal.

You're not them.

There are television shows millions of people adore that you don't watch.

Creators with enormous audiences you don't understand.

Music you hate.

Fashion you wouldn't wear.

Words you wouldn't use.

That doesn't mean everyone else is wrong.

One of the most valuable skills in marketing might be the ability to say:

“This isn't for me, but I can see why it's for them.”

That's a much more sophisticated judgement than:

“I don't like it.”

And significantly harder.

Your Job Is Not to Get Marketing Approved

Approval is part of the job.

It is not the job.

The job is to make customers notice.

Care.

Remember.

Click.

Buy.

Talk.

Feel something.

Whatever the actual objective requires.

The approval process exists to help that happen responsibly.

Not replace it.

Because nobody outside your organisation gives a shit that the campaign had unanimous stakeholder support.

Nobody gives you an extra sale because Legal loved Version 18.

Nobody shares an ad because the board felt extremely comfortable with the casting.

Your customer sees the final thing.

That's it.

So Who Are We Making This For?

It’s a useful question to ask when the feedback starts.

Management doesn't like the creator.

Does the audience?

The CEO doesn't understand the joke.

Does the audience?

Brand thinks the execution looks strange.

Is strange helping it get noticed?

Someone doesn't like the comments.

Are the comments actually a problem?

The Marketing Director wouldn't watch it.

Would the people we're trying to reach?

Sometimes the internal concern will be right.

Change the work.

Sometimes it won't.

Protect the work.

That's the job.

Because if the numbers are going up, customers are responding and the campaign is doing precisely what you asked it to do, but management still isn't comfortable…

Maybe don't immediately change the marketing.

Maybe change the conversation.

Your job isn't to make management comfortable.

Your job is to make customers care.