One of my favorite movies is Tommy Boy. It’s a tale of a guy who has to sell a lot of auto parts in order to save his family’s business. One of the many scenes that never fails to make me laugh is this one:

While watching that clip, you find out the problem is a broken door, but you don’t know why. Let’s rewind that scene a bit and watch again.

Ah, mystery solved.

This happens with marketing, too. A client will tell us “I placed an ad and it didn’t work.” But what they fail to mention (or maybe even realize) is they placed the ad on the wrong platform, with the wrong message, and the wrong timing. And that’s why the door broke.

As marketers, one of the most important questions we can ask is “What’d you do??”

As clients, one of the most important answers you can give is “I rammed the car door, backwards, into a pole, and tried to force it back into place with my hands.” Or, in other words, the truth.

Having a clear and full understanding of what you’ve done in the past will allow us to shape what you do in the future.

Nadia Zerka is an account director at Imagine Communications who, like Richard, has also had to have a car door replaced.