We lean on how something feels when making a fast judgment.
More quotes“Someone might complain.”
“Who?”
“People.”
“How many people?”
“We can’t know.”
“What will they complain about?”
“The tone.”
This exchange can continue until every recognisable feature has been removed. The final advert contains a smiling person, a pale blue background and the phrase here for you. It attracts zero complaints. It also attracts zero memories, which the approval group records with considerably less enthusiasm.
Specific harm deserves a specific discussion. Deception, cruelty, lazy stereotypes and punching down are failures of judgement. Name the group affected, the likely harm and the part of the work causing it. Then change the work or defend the choice.
“Somebody might dislike it” belongs in a different category. Somebody dislikes coriander. Somebody objects to dogs wearing coats. A strong opinion excludes a few people by definition; otherwise it is just punctuation around a market segment.
The team returns to the bolder version. They still judge one line cheap, so they remove it. They keep the odd visual. The media runs. Recognition rises and fourteen people complain, nine because they dislike the spokesperson’s haircut.
At the review, finance asks whether fourteen is a large number. Nobody knows. The previous campaign received two complaints and almost nobody remembered seeing it.