Here are the top warning signs.
ONE: Executives don't take our contribution seriously. Oh, they may pay it lip service. They may even throw big budgets your way. But these dangerous execs don't truly see communications as a strategic contributor to business success. This can be hard to spot from outside a company, so getting the scoop from current team members is essential. Typical signs of trouble are: senior marketing/communications execs with no actual experience in the field (often a top sales person who fancies events, or a biddable yes woman who'll put individual demands over the good of the company); expensive vanity projects chosen for their fit with executives rather than their relevance to customers; executives who demand content, events and campaigns without contributing any strategic input of their own; a majority of young or under-skilled team members (these execs prefer comms teams who don't have the experience or bravery to challenge them).
TWO: Poor plans. Back in my EDS days, things ran like clockwork. The senior execs created a clear business plan with the overall strategy and the specific business goals for the year. Marketing built a similarly direct plan on top of that. The communications disciplines then fleshed it out. At the time, I didn't realise how rare that was. Ask a room of corporate communications heads if they have an annual plan they're proud of, and most will sheepishly admit they don't. Often, it starts with the lack of the business plan at the very top. It may not exist, it may be too high-level to develop specific plans beneath or ... sadly typical in really large corporations ... it may be so vast and complicated it's not a plan at all, but a long list of random, unconnected desires. In each case, it's almost impossible to build a good marketing plan below. You'll get something that shares the same issues, and the problems will cascade down. It's perfectly acceptable to ask about plans when you're interviewing for a job. If the discussion gets nebulous fast, beware.
THREE: Bad measurement. Measurement is the holy grail of marketing communications. Everyone talks about it; few do it well. In general, the more problems a corporate communications team has with measuring its work, the bigger a sign that the function isn't tied in to the company's strategy. Problems typically take three forms. Most often, lack of decent plans means measurement is deployed ad hoc on stand-alone projects. There's no big picture, no movement against a benchmark, because the company doesn't follow one strategy long enough to allow it. More dangerous are the magnificent measurement cons that spin out reams of beautiful charts and graphs, with lines going ever upward and to the right ... but the success of the marketing programmes aren't matching the business performance. I've seen marketing teams hire spreadsheet wizards purely to invent the measurement myths that make them look good. This works in the short term but, as marketing disconnects ever further from business performance, will always end in disaster. Which generally takes us right back to point No. 1, where some senior execs are demanding non-strategic marketing activities that pump their egos, but not the bottom line.
It's likely that you'll find elements of all these problems in any big corporation. Most season
ed corporate communications professionals have spent their careers trying to solve these problems. But they are red flags. And if you see too many of them in the same place, you may want to re-evaluate whether you want to work for the company. Because with too many of these flags flying, you'll never be able to make a truly strategic impact. And that's no fun.
