I saved a client €100,000 in a single meeting

Floor-to-ceiling windows, twelve people around a table, and a polished deck with next quarter's content plan. Marc, the marketing director, was walking us through it with obvious pride. Clear timelines, detailed budgets, everything looked professional.

Fifteen minutes in, I realised I was watching a company prepare to spend over €100,000 making the same content four times.

Four campaigns, one story

The plan had four parts. An employer branding campaign in March, with €28,000 for recruitment videos. A customer acquisition push in April, with €35,000 for product demonstrations. Sales enablement in May, with €25,000 for presentation videos and case studies. And thought leadership running throughout, with €15,000 for executive positioning. In total, €103,000 over three months.

While the room discussed vendor selection, I was doing the maths in my head. Eventually I asked if I could say something. The room went quiet. "You're essentially creating the same content four times," I said, "and just calling it different things."

Marc looked confused. "No, these are completely different campaigns with different objectives." Fair enough. So I asked, "Are they, though?"

What the whiteboard showed

I walked to the whiteboard and started drawing lines. The recruitment videos would show authentic company culture and employee expertise. The customer content would demonstrate capabilities and results. Sales enablement would prove their track record and team competence. And the leadership positioning would showcase expertise and vision. Each time, people nodded. At one point someone said, "Yes, but..."

Then I turned back to the table. "You're telling the same story four times, to four audiences that overlap more than you think."

Nobody spoke for about thirty seconds. You could see faces change as people started connecting the dots on the board. Finally Marc asked, "So what are you suggesting?"

One approach that serves all four goals

Instead of four separate campaigns, I proposed one integrated strategy built from three kinds of content:

• Behind-the-scenes documentary content showing real employees solving real customer problems. It works as recruitment material, customer proof, sales case studies and leadership positioning at the same time.
• Customer success stories that feature both the client's results and the team members who delivered them.
• Executive interviews filmed in real work environments and customer situations, rather than studio-shot talking heads.

The numbers made the decision easy. The original plan was €103,000 for four campaigns, each serving one objective. The new approach was €45,000 for one campaign serving all four. That's €58,000 saved in hard costs. But the bigger win was consistency: every touchpoint now reinforced the same message instead of competing for attention. I wrote about a similar case in one video concept that solved four business problems.

What happened next

Three months later we executed the integrated approach. Compared with their previous campaigns, qualified job applications rose by 340%. Sales presentation effectiveness, measured by client feedback, improved by 67%. The sales cycle shortened by 45%, which the team attributed to stronger content supporting their conversations. And executive LinkedIn engagement went up 280% with authentic workplace content.

Same team, far less money, much better outcomes, because everything was finally pulling in the same direction.

Why smart teams make this mistake

None of this came from poor planning or a lack of intelligence. It came from structure. Marketing owned brand campaigns, HR owned recruitment content, Sales owned enablement materials, and Leadership owned thought leadership. Each department solved its own piece of the puzzle without seeing how the pieces fit.

It's an old problem. Ranjay Gulati described it in Harvard Business Review years ago: department structures make sense for operations, but they trap knowledge inside silos. In content, that means marketing doesn't talk to HR about what they're filming, and HR doesn't talk to Sales about what they're producing. Each team optimises its own content. Nobody optimises the system. That's where the waste happens. Not in execution, but in planning.

The marketing research supports joining things up, too. Les Binet and Peter Field's work for the IPA, The Long and the Short of It, argues for integrating brand building and activation rather than running them as separate efforts.

Strategy before production

Most companies hire creative people to execute their plans, not to question them. This team wanted a vendor to produce four campaigns. What they needed was someone to help them solve one business challenge four ways.

You can hear the difference in the question. The tactical one is, "How do we make recruitment videos, customer content, sales materials and leadership positioning?" The strategic one is, "How do we tell our real story in a way that attracts talent, customers and opportunities at the same time?"

Walking back to my car, I realised something about my own work. The €58,000 didn't come from being a better video producer or a more efficient project manager. It came from standing outside their organisation chart and seeing connections they were too close to notice. That's what strategic creative direction is, and why I think every growing business needs one.

Since that meeting I've seen the same pattern again and again. Sometimes the most valuable thing you can do in a meeting is draw a few lines on a whiteboard and ask, "Are these really different campaigns, or the same story told four times?"

If your plan for next quarter looks a bit like Marc's, I'd be happy to look at it with you. You can read more about how I work, see selected work, or book a 1-1.

— Joost