After many years of passive participation and avoiding our social media team, I finally caved. If this is too long, I’m told AI can summarise it for you anyway.
For those still here, let’s talk about something about this industry I’ve always found mildly fascinating.
Most clients don’t really want a strategic partner. They want someone who can take a decision they’ve already made internally and make it look intelligent externally. Most agencies, needing the business, are perfectly happy to do exactly that.
I understand this because I’ve been a client too. Once an idea has survived the founder, the leadership team, three workshops, and somebody describing it as “bold,” the room becomes dramatically less interested in hearing why it may not work.
At that point, communications usually enter like the Avengers being called in for damage control after the city is already on fire.
Which is why I’ve always found the phrase “strategic communications partner” slightly optimistic.
The interesting conversations happen much earlier. Usually, before the decks. Before the launch plans. Before everyone becomes emotionally attached to the narrative and starts confusing enthusiasm for inevitability.
The difference is one role: Devil’s Advocate. Not the token contrarian in the room, but the person whose job is to stress-test thinking before it hardens into action. Because every brand, every leader gets something wrong. That’s inevitable. What isn’t inevitable is letting it play out in public.
There’s a reason Nick Fury didn’t call in a contractor when things got complicated. He needed people with skin in the game, people who’d say the plan was wrong before the helicarrier went down.
Oddly, that’s the part of the job clients ask for the least and need the most.
Because most communications problems are not really communications problems. They’re decision-making problems that survived long enough to become public relations exercises.
And once something reaches the execution stage, honesty becomes significantly more expensive.
