Red Flag Phrases, Part 1

Introducing a new feature on Chaos2Clarity joining the ranks of "BrandWatch," "HandshakeWatch," "Focus vs. Inclusion" and "Random Rewrites." I'm calling it "Red Flag Phrases." Its purpose is to provide some preventive medicine for the marketing world by exposing the words and phrases that mark the early warning signs of impending catastrophe.

Kicking off Red Flag Phrases is the mother of all red flags. If you or someone you love says the following in a marketing meeting, stop immediately:

"We'll do that in a Phase 2."

What does this phrase mean? It means that the client has scaled back its expectations and/or budgets for a particular project... or it's been decided that surviving politically means tackling things in smaller bites instead of all at once. As in, "We'd love to have the bells and whistles on our website, but let's just get something up in time for the trade show and handle everything else in a Phase 2."

In the realpolitik of marketing, this phrase is very common and completely understandable. The issues marketing directors face related to budgets, politics, deadlines and unreasonable expectations are staggering (especially today, when those who are fortunate enough to be employed are expected to do the jobs or two or three people).

The problem is, the phrase spells impending doom for a project. I'm quite certain that in some universe, at some time, Phase 2 has actually happened according to plan and everyone has been happy. I've yet to experience it myself. More commonly, what happens is that the creative agency does the interim work (minus the "Phase 2"), and the client isn't happy with the results. Why? Because Phase 1 is boring, and even though clients say they don't expect to see Phase 2's bells and whistles yet, deep down they really do.

The key for both sides in this situation is to stop for a second and hammer out what they really mean by Phase 2. More often than not, with early detection, Phase 2 can be reached in Phase 1 without anybody getting hurt. (I was going to write more about this topic, but I'm saving it for a Phase 2.)