In my half century on this planet, I can’t recall a time when people were more polarized — about virtually everything.
And unlike previous periods of societal turmoil, social media now gives all of us a wider window into the fractures — and a megaphone to share our own two cents.
As communications and marketing professionals, we’re now advising clients in this environment and it means that our teams need to be considering more than they ever have when recommending messages, campaigns, and more.
I’ll explore how to navigate this a bit later in this week’s newsletter, but first let’s look at what Jen has rounded up for us this week.
— Chip Griffin, SAGA Founder
Weekly Roundup
Below are some articles, blog posts, podcasts, and videos that we came across during the past week or so that provide useful perspective and information for PR and marketing agency owners. While we don’t necessarily endorse all of the views expressed in these links, we think they are worth your time.
— Jen Griffin, SAGA Community Manager
Latest from SAGA
- Stop providing solutions before understanding your client’s challenges (Agency Leadership Podcast)
Articles & Blog Posts
- If 93% of Firms Struggle with Pipelines, What’s Your Next Move? (RSW/US)
- Paying Yourself Appropriately (Punctuation)
- From Catalog Cribs to QR Codes: The PESO Model© in Action (Spin Sucks)
- Why agency growth plateaus when leaders aren’t aligned (Sakas and Company)
- Marketing agency roles explained: Who does what in 2025? (AgencyAnalytics)
Podcast Episodes
- The Visibility Engineer Manifesto (Spin Sucks)
- Strategies for Securing New PR Business in 2025 (Solo PR Pro)
- The Table Stakes for Agency Business Growth Now, with Dan Englander (The Innovative Agency)
- Logan Lyles, DemandShift – Build a Thought-Leadership Engine that Sells (Agency Bytes)
- What’s Your Core Selling Identity? with Mark Drager (The Agency Profit Podcast)
- FIR Interview: Generative Engine Optimisation with Stephanie Grober (For Immediate Release)
Video
- Jeffrey Mard on Just Ask Jody Live (The Sutter Company)
AI in focus
- How Do We Separate the AI Tools from the AI Toys? (The Bureau)
Advising clients in a polarized climate
Organizations of all sizes and types face more communications risks today than they have likely ever experienced.
Almost everything gets viewed through a political or ideological lens — even things that don’t seem obviously connected.
And everyone has an opinion, some of them quite strong.
As agencies, we need to help our clients navigate this environment. But how do we do that effectively?
First, we need to do no harm. So that means that we need to understand how our campaigns and content may be perceived by others with different world views.
It can be challenging because most small agencies coalesce around people with similar perspectives. It’s natural for owners to gravitate toward like-minded individuals and the staffing often reflects that.
So that means we may need to make an extra effort to seek out other opinions and ideas.
How many times have we all seen a social media post or advertisement gone wrong and think to ourselves, “how could they not have seen how that sounded?”
The answer often lies in the fact that it was reviewed in an echo chamber.
Of course, we can’t focus group every social media update, but we do need to be mindful of the fact that others have different experiences and find ways to integrate that into our teams and processes.
But what do you do when you’re advising clients on products, services, or campaigns that can’t move forward without attracting controversy?
In these cases, we effectively have two main options: try to inoculate against the pushback or choose to lean into it.
Many larger brands prefer to skirt controversy by watering down ideas, shelving concepts, or building defenses from the start.
Upstarts and some rebellious big brands relish the fights either for the attention it draws or simply out of strongly-held convictions.
We need to know our clients (and ourselves) to figure out which path to follow.
And as agencies, we also need to decide how to approach these types of issues ourselves.
I have almost always advised agencies to steer clear of participation in controversies unless it is core to their business identities.
But many agency owners feel compelled to speak out and — like many others — take sides.
Regardless of where you stand on the controversies of the day, that outspokenness will carry risks.
Will it scare off current or future clients who — even though they may agree with you — aren’t prepared to be so open with their own convictions?
Understanding appetite for risk has always been a key requirement for agency leaders and communicators or marketers of all kinds.
We all approach it differently, but today we’re forced to incorporate risk assessments in almost everything we do ourselves as well as in the advice we give clients.
As long as we remain hyper-polarized on pretty much every topic, this will be a challenge that agencies will need to be adept at navigating if they want to enjoy success.
