What we say vs. what they hear

A common misconception in marketing is that communication is a transmission problem, when actually I think it's a translation problem. We optimize for message fidelity. We focus efforts ensuring our creative executes flawlessly, our copy tests well, or our media reaches the right audience. However, communication doesn't always occur when the message is sent. It occurs when the recipient constructs meaning from it. Just to complicate things further, the construction process is inherently subjective and contextual. The same message encounters different interpretive frameworks depending on the recipient's prior experience, their current circumstances, or their cognitive load. What we intend as premium positioning could be decoded as overpriced. What we frame as innovative features may be understood as unnecessary complexity. The issue becomes more pronounced in B2B marketing, where purchase decisions involve multiple stakeholders with different priorities and vocabularies. The CEO would interpret something different from the CFO, for example. The CFO would interpret investment in growth differently from the CMO. A procurement department hears cost when the strategy team hears capability. Most marketing measurement focuses on exposure metrics— impressions, reach, engagement rates, that sort of thing— rather than interpretive outcomes. We can tell you how many people saw our message, but we haven't got a clue how many people understood it. In the way that we intended it to be understood. And this gap between transmission and comprehension explains why campaigns that perform well against traditional metrics can still fall flat on their face, um, and fail to drive business results. The solution, I think, isn't more creative testing or better targeting. It's designing communication systems that account for interpretive variance from the very outset. This means building redundancy into messaging, into anything customer-facing, to anticipate misreading and creating feedback mechanisms that reveal the gap between intended and received meaning. Marketing's future belongs to those who solve for interpretation. Not only impression. Thanks for listening. If you liked what you heard, pass it on. I'm not saying I'm right. I'm saying there are others out there who are wrong. Please subscribe, share, or leave a comment. Whatever works for you. You can find out more by visiting kexino.com. That's K-E-X-I-N-O. Hope to see you again here soon.