Review, put things right, and change the process
What do you owe the audience now, and what do you change next time?
This chapter closes the campaign: a blameless post-mortem, a remedy for any customer who was misled even by accident, a correction that travels as far as the error did, and specific process changes with owners. It ends with a whole-campaign TARES check that opens the next brief.
All stages
Hold a blameless post-mortem
Hold the review within two weeks of the measurement report, whether the campaign succeeded or not. Invite support, operations, and at least one person from outside marketing. Bring the objective brief, the gate records, the test plan, and the measurement report. Go through the nine stages in order and ask of each: what did we expect, what happened, and why? Start with the guardrails and the complaint themes, not the headline number, so the difficult material gets the time it needs.
Keep it blameless. The aim is to find the gap in the process that let a problem through, not the person standing nearest to it. People who expect to be blamed stop reporting problems, and then you find out from customers. Be equally hard on successes: a good result does not show that every decision behind it was sound. Write the findings as facts with evidence, not as a story.
Work out what you owe customers
If anyone was misled, even by accident, even by a third party speaking for you, you owe them a remedy. First identify everyone who may have been affected, not only the people who complained; most people who feel tricked say nothing and leave. Then make them whole: give them what they reasonably believed they were getting, or refund the difference. Do it without requiring them to ask.
Tell them plainly what was said, what was true, and what you have done. Apologise without excuses. Do not make the remedy conditional on staying, and do not attach a promotion to it. You also owe your wider audience what you promised them: unsubscribes and exclusions carried forward, and data you no longer need deleted according to your inventory.
Correct the record
A false impression outlives the statement that created it, so a correction has to travel as far as the error did. Put it where the error appeared, through the same messenger, with at least the same prominence, and leave it up. Lead with the correct fact, say briefly what was wrong, and repeat the correct fact. Editing the original without a note does not reach the people who already saw it.
Keep a corrections log: what was wrong, where, when it was fixed, and who was told. If the error concerned a regulated claim, check with your legal reviewer whether anyone else needs to be informed.
Decide what changes next time
Turn each finding into one specific change to a template, contract, checklist, or gate, with an owner and a date. "Be more careful" is not a change. Update your baseline with the real figures from this campaign so the next objective starts from them. Move budget toward the channels that proved incremental and away from those that only looked good on a dashboard. Schedule one follow-up in three to six months to check whether the customers this campaign brought are still there and whether the changes you assigned were made.
Finish by asking the five TARES questions of the campaign as a whole: was it truthful, authentic, respectful of the audience, equitable, and socially responsible? Write a sentence for each. Those sentences go at the top of the next campaign's brief.
Techniques at this stage, and where the line is
Review decisions against what was known at the time, using the dated records, so lessons are about process and not about what now seems obvious.
The line: Telling customers or partners that a problem "could not have been foreseen" when your own records show it was raised.
Assume the wrong impression persists after the fix. Correct it in the same place, lead with the true fact, and keep the correction visible.
The line: Issuing a quiet correction because you know the favourable first impression will linger.
People remember how an experience ended. Make the remedy, the cancellation, and the final message straightforward and decent.
The line: Staging a pleasant ending to paper over a problem you have not actually fixed.
Look for the situation that produced an error (an unclear brief, a missing check) before blaming the character of the person who made it.
The line: Blaming customers for "not reading the terms", or a contractor for a mistake your process invited, to avoid owing a remedy.
A remedy settles a debt; it is not credit to spend. Keep the gates as strict on the next campaign as on this one.
The line: Publicising the refund as proof of virtue while the cause stays in place, or treating one good act as permission to cut the next corner.
Write the changes down with owners and dates, and tell the team and affected customers, so you are held to them.
The line: Announcing commitments you do not intend to resource, to end the complaints.
Worked example
Kestrel Coffee's measurement report shows a campaign that broadly worked and one creator statement, "half off your first bags", that misled customers about the Flex discount.
- 1The post-mortem is held a week after 31 March with the founder, the support lead, the head roaster, and the freelancer who managed the creators. They trace the error: the fact sheet said "first bag half price", the creator spoke from memory, and the contract did not ask her to confirm price statements before posting. It is a gap in the process, not bad faith.
- 2Who is owed: all 61 customers who used that creator's code, not only the 38 who wrote in. Each is automatically credited 8.50 dollars, the half-price difference on a second bag, at a total cost of 518.50 dollars.
- 3Each of the 61 receives a short email: what the video said, what the offer was, that the credit is already applied, and how to cancel if they prefer. The email contains no promotion.
- 4Correction: the creator edits the caption to open with "Correction: the half-price offer is for the first bag only. Kestrel has credited everyone who used my code", and pins the same text as a comment. Kestrel adds a dated note to the Flex page and its corrections log.
- 5Changes with owners and dates: creator contracts now require price and offer statements to be confirmed against the fact sheet before posting (facts only, never opinions); a "how to skip a delivery" email is added at day 10 to address the missed retention target; the next campaign moves budget from paid social toward email and bag inserts; holdouts become standard; and the baseline is updated to the new figures.
- 6Data: interview recordings from stage 2 are deleted. The hardship exclusion list stays in force for future campaigns.
Outcome. Within two weeks all 61 customers are credited. Four cancel, eleven reply with thanks, the correction is live where the error appeared, and five process changes sit at the top of the next campaign's brief template.
Post-campaign review
Complete in the review meeting. Keep it with the objective brief for the next campaign. Saved in this browser only.
For each of the nine stages: what you expected, what happened, and the evidence for why.
What they were led to believe, how many people may have been affected (not only those who complained), and how you identified them.
What each affected person receives, when, and the wording of the message telling them.
Tick each statement that is true of the remedy.
Where the error appeared, where the correction now appears, its wording (true fact first), and the corrections-log entry.
One specific change per finding to a template, contract, checklist, or gate, each with an owner and a date.
Tick each task completed.
One sentence each on whether the campaign was truthful, authentic, respectful, equitable, and socially responsible, naming any shortfall.
Ethics gate: review and response
0/8If any of these is not true: The campaign is not closed and the next one does not start. Finish identifying who was affected, deliver the remedy, publish the correction, and assign the changes. If the organisation will not fund a remedy for people it misled, put that decision in writing to whoever made it; it is the most important finding of the review.
Common mistakes
- ×Skipping the review because the numbers were good.
- ×Compensating only the customers who complained.
- ×Fixing the page quietly and telling nobody who saw the earlier version.
- ×Blaming the contractor or the customer and leaving the process gap in place.
- ×Turning the apology into a promotion, or recording lessons with no owner and no date.
What do I do about it: ignore, verify, report, rebut, or prebunk?
Related
References
- Baker, S., & Martinson, D. L. (2001). The TARES test: Five principles for ethical persuasion. Journal of Mass Media Ethics, 16(2-3)The five principles used for the whole-campaign check.
- Lewandowsky, S., Cook, J., Ecker, U. K. H., et al. (2020). The Debunking Handbook 2020Misinformation continues to influence people after correction; effective corrections lead with the fact and are clear and prominent.
- Coombs, W. T. (2007). Protecting organization reputations during a crisis: The development and application of situational crisis communication theory. Corporate Reputation Review, 10(3)Responses should match the organisation's responsibility, with information and care for those affected coming first.
- United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (1977). Warner-Lambert Co. v. Federal Trade Commission, 562 F.2d 749Corrective advertising can be required where past claims leave a lingering false impression.
- Roese, N. J., & Vohs, K. D. (2012). Hindsight bias. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 7(5)Outcomes seem more predictable afterwards, which distorts reviews unless decisions are judged against contemporaneous records.
- Beyer, B., Jones, C., Petoff, J., & Murphy, N. R. (Eds.) (2016). Site Reliability Engineering: How Google Runs Production Systems. O'Reilly MediaBlameless post-mortem practice: focus on process causes so that problems are reported.