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Ask HN: How do I tell marketing that their work product is horrible

4 points by happytrails ↗ HN
Quick background, our company is successful and about 40 employees. We have just one issue, a really bad marketing group. The marketing is done by the owner's brother and he is clearly not the best, spelling mistakes in newsletters etc..

This is compounded by the fact we mainly hire recent grads and we have a semi-decent programmer who can also do some graphics. Our advertisements look like kid graphics.

For some reason this makes me a bit angry because at then end of the day when I tell people where I work they only see these images, logos, marketing material and not the fact that our product is successful.

Any thoughts on how to go about providing positive criticism?

8 comments

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nodata
It'll be tricky: how would you react if the marketing department gave you a code review?
davismwfl
This isn't easy. My suggestions is not to say your marketing team sucks, but show how the marketing compares to others. When you are coming from the point of hey, look at how good these look and we could really learn something here. It is a different approach then saying, damn you guys really suck at your job. Sometimes a defensive person will still react badly even with this approach, but usually when they think you are helping it is not nearly as bad. And it may take more than 1 time to get the point across.

If your competitors aren't that good, then compare yourself to other companies that are really successful and show why it might be good to follow trend setters. Also, do this to make sure you aren't the one off base, sometimes we all get there.

The end game is to get the team to see the light (e.g. potential), not prove you are right or they are wrong. Use that as your logic and at least in my experience it goes a lot smoother.

sisivee
Here's the main issue: he's the owner's brother.

Sounds like you have some complex familial issues to overcome, unless he's open to feedback, before you can really influence change.

Does the owner know it's bad? Probably so. But the guy is still his brother :/

brudgers
Reminds me of:

It needs to be more branded.

http://www.27bslash6.com/brochure.html

UnoriginalGuy
I'm sure that didn't happen, but really the only thing I kept thinking while reading that is that the new designer was being unnecessarily antagonistic and unprofessional to the original one.

I didn't cheer for the new designer, all I thought is "I'd never want to work with this person." At least the old designer kept his cool through a lot of bullying before they finally retorted, I'd prefer to work with that person since they at least seem basically professional.

brudgers
A professional acknowledges the limitations of their expertise and recognizes when their part in a project is done. Good manners are to be admired. Interfering with a person hired to do a job out of ego is not necessarily good manners. Passive aggression is still aggression.
Jeremy1026
Do you work at STS Travel? This sounds far too familiar.
MalcolmDiggs
Data. You bring data to the table and let them make the rational decision. No reason to convince them of anything, let the stats speak for themselves.

It's marketing; its point is to drive sales and increase brand exposure right? These days (especially with digital campaigns) these things are measurable.

But you also need to be open to the fact that your opinion really doesn't matter. Maybe the ugly banners have higher click-through-rates or lead to a lower cost-per-acquisition than a prettier alternative. If that's the case, pretty doesn't matter. But if your hunch is correct then you should be experiencing substandard click-throughs, higher than normal CPA, etc; and you can point that out to them without being confrontational.