We are often more certain than the evidence really allows.
More quotes“Raise awareness” is not an objective. It is what people write when they want the meeting to end.
An objective should be rude enough to exclude things. We need these people to do this, because that creates this commercial result, and communication can help by changing this belief. If the sentence cannot survive without words like engagement, amplification or momentum, there probably is not a strategy underneath it—just scented fog. Take a B2B platform. More qualified revenue may require more demo requests; more demos may require reducing the fear of migration. That chain suggests proof, reassurance and a low-risk first step. “Be famous in the category” suggests an expensive film and a nice lunch. A subscription product chasing retention might need customers to use one sticky feature in week one, not applaud the brand purpose on launch day. A retailer may need a second purchase, not three million views from people who will never enter the shop.
I am suspicious of objectives that flatter the activity rather than expose the mechanism. Great creative cannot affect people it never reaches. Huge reach cannot rescue an irrelevant promise. Neither becomes effective because a dashboard has coloured the numbers green. Write the desired behaviour, business consequence, barrier, reach and deadline on one page. Then kill any activity that cannot plausibly connect them. If that feels brutal, good. The objective has finally started doing some work.