Almost every brief we receive contains some version of the same sentence. Push us. Do not play it safe. We want something people will actually remember.
And then, several weeks later, the work that gets approved is the third option. The reasonable one. The one nobody in the room felt strongly about in either direction.
This happens constantly, across every market and every category, and it is almost never because the client was lying at the briefing. It is because of what happens in between.
Safe Work Is Usually a Process Problem, Not a Taste Problem
The person who wrote the brief is rarely the only person who has to approve it. Between the first presentation and the final sign-off, work typically passes through a marketing manager, a commercial director, a founder, sometimes a legal review and often somebody senior who has not been in any of the previous conversations.
Each of those people is doing something entirely rational. They are protecting themselves against the version of this that goes wrong. Nobody has ever been reprimanded for approving something unremarkable. People are absolutely reprimanded for approving something that draws attention for the wrong reason.
So each stage removes a little risk. No single edit is unreasonable. Cumulatively, they sand every edge off the idea until what is left is technically competent and completely forgettable.
The brief asked for bravery. The process was designed to eliminate it.
What an Approval Structure That Protects Ideas Looks Like
Decide who decides, before the work exists. The single most common cause of diluted work is a decision-maker who appears late. If someone has a veto, they should be in the briefing, not the final review.
Separate the two questions. Is this on strategy, and do I personally like it, are different questions. Conflating them is how a campaign gets rebuilt around one person’s taste. Ask the first out loud, and hold the second more lightly.
Ask what specifically is at risk. Not does this feel risky, but what exactly could go wrong and how likely is it. Most perceived risk evaporates under that question. The genuine risks that remain are worth taking seriously.
Protect one route. If three options go up and every one gets amended toward the middle, you have three versions of the same safe idea. Some organisations designate one route that only gets a yes or a no, never a partial edit.
How to Be the Client Who Gets Better Work
Agencies are not neutral about this. Every studio has clients it saves its best thinking for, and clients it delivers competently to. The difference is rarely budget.
It is whether the last brave thing survived. Teams calibrate to what gets approved, not to what gets asked for. Approve one distinctive piece of work and the standard of what you are shown next time rises noticeably.
The reverse is also true, and faster.
None of this is an argument for boldness as an end in itself. Work that is strange without being strategic is just expensive noise. But if you have ever wondered why your marketing looks like your competitor’s, the answer is not usually a shortage of ideas. It is what happened to them on the way to approval.
If you want work that survives the room it has to get through, speak to Fabianca about branding for your business →
