Marketing.
Branding.
Communications.

When people get combative in communications it is often as a “response” to perceived slights and opinion. These unspoken, unchallenged, and too-often inaccurate self-generated “truths” dictate way more of our interactions than most of us are aware. Which is why we always keep a keen eye on steering clear of conversations about “right and wrong” and towards creating messaging that is not an inadvertent catalyst for prejudice, stigma, or reflexive opposition.

The decision to be “funny” or “provocative” in an ad should only come from the pursuit of the most effective message. When this priority is flipped in social marketing campaigns, the under-represented party ends up paying the price because the focus ends up in the wrong place.

I always saw branding and strategic communications as being protected against outsourcing or automation. But, a couple of years ago, while basking in the knowledge of my irreplaceability, it occurred to me that my obdurate certainty was based on a fast-disappearing future: that people would get to make up their own minds.