Business Performance Research

Why Communications Go Wrong

Six causes of costly mistakes	Communications ... eg advertising, exhibition stands, websites, brochures, presentations, selling, etc ... go wrong because:
1. Thinking Errors	Teams make avoidable Thinking Errors when strategising, devising, and planning Communications and campaigns (especially their integration). Errors that usually only surface (if realised at all) when things go wrong or poor results emerge. For example, we often 'phone the number given in an advertisement and find that the person who answers has no knowledge of the ad. And many communicators have clearly given little or no thought as to how their targets are likely to react or respond. We have in our 'library' a Change missive issued by an FT-100 CEO to all staff that, in effect, says *"You will communicate".*
2. Communications suffer Iffyness	All communications are inherently ‘iffy’ - which is why no agency will offer a guarantee; they claim that too many things can influence effectiveness. But in fact, we have a ‘library’ of case studies showing **elementary mistakes** that should have been easily spotted by any decent Quality Assurance system. We notice communications errors every single day and work out what went wrong. We can often spot the causes in seconds.
3. People (mistakenly) think they can be Objective	Most communicators believe they can judge their own communications. But our research proves that nobody can see or hear their own communications from the target’s viewpoint – they're too involved to be objective (*Barrett's Law of Subjectivity). Ask Gerald Ratner*!!!
4. Communications Quality Assurance didn’t exist, until now	Until now, there has never been a formal Quality Assurance system available for analysing and improving the effectiveness of communications prior to issue. No Quality Assurance professional has ever applied their techniques to ‘creative’ Marketing Communications (or any Communications) ... until we did.
5. Conventional tests and opinions are very unreliable	Focus groups, usability tests, and post-publication research are very unreliable or imprecise. They can’t even test TWO WORDS (two of our case studies). Even the client's team can have problems judging the likely effectiveness of their own communications. Cadbury's now-famous Gorilla tv ad was very close to being rejected by the CEO before it was launched. He just didn't like it.
6. Even Marketing experts can get it wrong	Even communications ‘experts’ can make simple errors and be totally unaware of it. One of our case studies concerns the Institute of Marketing. We listened to a presentation by one of their speakers and saw that the audience were totally puzzled. We could see the reasons but the speaker was totally oblivious to this confusion. See Classic Cases. We all suffer the same problem.
The Solution	Apply AdQA, the world’s first Communications Quality Assurance System, to your communications - ideally before publication. See AdQA Communications Pre-Testing and Improvement
	What really affects Business Performance How to Improve Business Performance – a Summary of our Services
Have a Demo	Email us for an introductory discussion and demonstration of our 4-stage Clear Thinking Process applied to any aspect of your business.