The real reason marcom projects go off the rails

Here's something agency people aren't always supposed to say out loud: Most marcom projects don't struggle because of bad strategy. They don't fail because the messaging wasn't sharp enough, or because the creative wasn't compelling enough or because the team wasn't talented enough. More often, they struggle because of organizational behavior. 

The strategy was sound. The recommendations were thoughtful. The agency delivered what was asked for. And yet somehow the project stalled, deadlines slipped, stakeholders became frustrated or the final result lacked the impact everyone was hoping for. Why? 

After 16+ years in client relationships, I've come to believe that many communications challenges aren't communications challenges at all. They're alignment challenges. They're trust challenges. They're relationship challenges. 

This is especially true in sustainability communications, where complex business decisions, evolving stakeholder expectations and competing internal priorities can make even the most straightforward communications initiative challenging. When these dynamics aren't addressed early, organizations risk more than a delayed campaign. They risk undermining the credibility of the story they're trying to tell. 

Years ago, Robert Solomon articulated a principle in The Art of Client Service that has shaped how ERM MCA account managers think about client-agency partnerships. He described successful partnerships through what he called the Trust Triangle: great work, strong relationships and trust. Each element reinforces the others. Strong relationships build trust. Trust creates the confidence to pursue better work. Great work strengthens both the relationship and the trust that supports it. 

In my experience, nearly every marcom project that goes sideways can be traced back to a crack in one of those three elements.  

Let’s get into a few scenarios that cause a breakdown in the Trust Triangle: 

• Nobody knows who owns the decision 
• Internal alignment happens too late 
• Communications arrives after the important decisions have been made 
• Agencies are given deliverables instead of business problems 
• Relationships become transactional 

Nobody knows who owns the decision

I've sat through countless meetings where everyone appeared aligned. Then a week later, everything changed. A new stakeholder surfaced. A senior leader raised concerns. Previously approved work suddenly needed to be reconsidered. 

What happened? Usually, nobody had clearly established who actually owned the decision. 

I once worked with a client where our primary point of contact was fantastic to work with. They were responsive, engaged, complimentary of the work and seemed fully aligned with the direction we were recommending. Over several weeks, we developed campaign concepts together and felt confident we were making steady progress. 

Then the real decision-maker got involved. It became clear that while our day-to-day contact was influencing the process, they weren't actually empowered to make final decisions. The leader who ultimately owned the work had a very different vision for the campaign and wasn't aligned with the direction we'd been developing. Suddenly, weeks of productive conversations no longer mattered. The work stalled, trust eroded and eventually the relationship fell apart. 

Looking back, the issue wasn't the strategy, the creative or the quality of the work. We simply hadn't identified the true decision-maker early enough. 

Organizations naturally want diverse perspectives — that’s healthy. The challenge comes when input and approval become interchangeable. When everyone has a voice but no one has authority, teams get stuck, discussions continue longer than necessary and feedback becomes contradictory.  

The most effective organizations create clarity around decision-making from the very beginning. Everyone understands who needs to be informed, who should provide input and who owns the final call. That clarity alone can prevent months of frustration. 

Internal alignment happens too late

One of the most common patterns I see is organizations using agency meetings to discover their own disagreements. 

An idea is presented. Stakeholders begin debating priorities, concerns and perspectives. The conversation is productive, but it's happening at the wrong time. The agency becomes the venue for internal alignment instead of the partner helping move already aligned teams forward. When stakeholders are still forming opinions during major review moments, projects inevitably slow down.  

The strongest client teams have the important conversations early enough that the agency receives clear direction rather than competing viewpoints. 

Communications arrives after the important decisions have been made 

For many organizations, communications is still treated as the final step in any process. A business decision gets made, a sustainability initiative gets approved or a policy gets finalized, then communications is brought in to explain it. 

The problem is that communicators often provide the greatest value before decisions are finalized. Communicators understand audiences. They anticipate stakeholder reactions and areas of confusion before they occur. They help leaders think through not only what they want to say, but how their message will be received. 

When communications is brought in too late, the role is reactive. But when communications is brought in early, the role becomes strategic.  

Agencies are given deliverables instead of business problems 

A request comes in: "We need a campaign." "We need messaging." "We need a website." "We need a video." 

Those requests are often incomplete. The most valuable agency work rarely comes from executing a deliverable — It comes from solving a business problem. But an agency can't fully understand the business problem without context. 

What's happening internally? 
What concerns does leadership have? 
What challenges have surfaced before? 
What political realities exist within the organization? 
What does success actually look like? 

I've seen agencies create remarkable solutions because a client was willing to share information that initially seemed irrelevant. I've also seen good ideas miss the mark because critical context remained hidden. The more an agency understands the organizational landscape, the more strategic its recommendations become.

Relationships become transactional 

Ultimately, this is the issue that sits underneath all the others. When client-agency relationships become purely transactional, trust weakens. And when trust weakens, everything gets harder: difficult conversations get postponed, challenges surface later than they should and opportunities for strategic input become limited. 

The strongest partnerships aren't built because every project runs perfectly. In fact, some of the strongest partnerships I've experienced were forged while navigating difficult situations together. Trust is built when people can have honest conversations, raise concerns early, disagree respectfully and work through challenges as a team. 

That's why Solomon's Trust Triangle has endured for so many years. Great work matters. Strong relationships matter. Trust matters. None can compensate indefinitely for the absence of another. 

The organizations that consistently achieve the best marcom outcomes understand this intuitively. They invest in the quality of the relationship just as much as the quality of the deliverables. 

The real competitive advantage

Organizations often assume better marcom results require larger budgets, bigger teams or more sophisticated strategies. In my experience, that's rarely the differentiator. 

The organizations that consistently produce effective communications have something far simpler: clarity. Clarity about who makes decisions, about stakeholder roles, about business objectives and what success looks like. And perhaps most importantly, they have relationships built on trust. 

Most marcom problems start with the conditions surrounding it. Get those conditions right, and great communications becomes much easier to achieve. Get them wrong, and even the best strategy in the world can struggle to succeed.