The client approval process
How to avoid approval purgatory
“What do you think?”
It is one of the most common questions in marketing. It is also one of the most dangerous.
Most of us have worked with someone who cannot quite approve anything. The presentation is finished. The objectives have been met. The strategy is sound. Key stakeholders have signed off.
Then, just before committing, they wander around the office asking for views.
A colleague from Finance. Someone from HR. The person who sits opposite. The CEO’s executive assistant. Anyone who happens to be walking past.
Before long, one carefully considered piece of work has collected twenty opinions from people who were never part of the project.
Welcome to approval purgatory.
The problem is not feedback
Good creative work benefits from challenge. In fact, strong work depends on it.
However, there is an important difference between qualified feedback and casual opinion.
Qualified feedback improves the work. Casual opinion often adds noise.
The risk is that every extra opinion can start to carry the same weight, even when each person has a very different level of context.
Someone who has not seen the research, strategy, customer insight or project objectives can unintentionally derail weeks of careful thinking with a simple comment:
“I’m not sure I like the blue.”
Or:
“Could we make the logo bigger?”
Or the classic:
“My partner doesn’t really get it.”
These comments are not always wrong. They are usually just answering the wrong question.
Every project needs a clear client approval process
Most organisations already have some form of approval framework.
Often, it is called a RACI.
When used properly, a RACI is one of the simplest ways to prevent unnecessary rework, unclear feedback and decision paralysis.
A RACI identifies who plays which role throughout a project:
Responsible – The person managing delivery.
Accountable – The person with final authority and budget responsibility.
Consulted – Specialists whose expertise must be considered. This may include Legal, Compliance, Regulatory, Medical or Brand.
Informed – People who need to understand what is happening but do not need to approve the work.
That structure is simple, clear and effective.
At least, it should be.
RACI only works when people understand their role
Over time, approval lists tend to grow.
Someone joins the business. A new leadership role is created. Another department wants visibility. Meanwhile, nobody ever seems to come off the list.
Eventually, five reviewers become fifteen.
That is when momentum disappears.
Instead of improving quality, the approval process starts protecting everyone from making a decision. As a result, the work gets slower, safer and less effective.
Not every opinion deserves equal weighting
One of the biggest responsibilities of a marketing leader is knowing the difference between technical feedback and personal preference.
Legal should identify legal risk. Compliance should identify compliance risk. Brand should identify brand inconsistency. Medical should identify clinical accuracy.
Those perspectives are essential.
Personal taste is different.
“Why green?”
“I would not say it like that.”
“I showed my neighbour and they were not sure.”
These comments may be genuine. However, they are not always useful.
The marketing team’s job is to separate subjective opinion from commercially relevant feedback. That requires confidence. Sometimes, it also requires bravery.
The agency is not asking for approval. It is asking for a decision.
Strong agency-client relationships are built on trust.
The agency brings strategy, creative experience and external perspective. The client brings organisational knowledge, commercial priorities and market understanding.
Together, they can make better decisions.
However, that only works when both sides respect the process.
When every creative decision gets reopened through informal conversations, the process stops being collaborative and starts becoming political.
Projects slow down. Confidence erodes. Good ideas become watered down by compromise.
Eventually, everyone starts optimising for consensus instead of effectiveness.
Ask better feedback questions
Instead of asking, “What do you think?”, ask questions that connect feedback to the project objective.
For example:
Does this achieve the objective?
Is anything inaccurate?
Have we missed a commercial risk?
Would our customer understand this?
Does this align with our brand?
These questions produce actionable feedback. By contrast, “What do you think?” usually produces personal opinion.
Keep the approval group lean
Every marketing team should review its approval process regularly.
Start with four simple questions:
Does everyone on this list still need to approve the work?
Is this person providing specialist expertise or simply another opinion?
Who has final decision-making authority?
Where are projects getting stuck?
Most organisations discover they can remove several approval layers without increasing risk.
In many cases, they improve the quality of the work because accountability becomes clearer.
The best feedback makes the work stronger
Great creative work should be challenged. It should be tested, questioned and improved.
However, every piece of feedback should have a clear reason for existing.
Not every opinion deserves a design change. Not every suggestion deserves another revision. And not every person needs to be asked.
Somewhere between collaboration and consensus lies a dangerous place where good work slowly becomes average.
That place is approval purgatory.
Very few brands produce their best work from there.
