Dear Dutch,
I run a 10-year-old SaaS company that’s hitting a plateau. Last year we blew six figures on a brand “refresh” with a top-rated agency. It looked great but moved exactly zero needles… no lift in leads, no change in customer perception. I feel burned.
We know we need to rethink our marketing and brand strategy but frankly I don’t trust agencies anymore. I’m scared we’re just going to get sold another beautiful nothingburger. How do we rebuild an effective marketing strategy that’s actually tied to real business outcomes, and how can we do it without getting taken for another expensive ride?
— Botched Unrealistic Refresh Nightmare
You’re not wrong to feel burned, BURN, and you’re definitely not the only one still tasting the char.
A lot of smart, capable companies find themselves in exactly this spot: bruised from a six-figure rebrand or high-profile creative campaign that looked amazing, sounded impressive, and did absolutely nothing to move the numbers that matter.
You’re calling it a “beautiful nothingburger,” and honestly? That actually sounds like it could be the name of an agency.
Don’t laugh; Beautiful Nothingburger has probably won a Webby. Twice.
The truth is, these kinds of projects often succeed on the agency’s terms (hours billed, awards won, portfolios updated) while failing completely on yours.
That’s not because you’re naive, it’s because the system is built that way, and unless you know how to decode the incentives, priorities, and unspoken dynamics at play it’s easy to get swept into something that looks like momentum but turns out to be very expensive theatre.
Let’s break down why this keeps happening, and more importantly, how to make sure it doesn’t happen to you again.
Why you got burned, and why it’s so common
1. Incentives: The game is rigged for optics, not outcomes
Agencies are rewarded for what helps them look good and bill hours, not for what grows your business.
That means:
- Selling the services they already provide (logo designs, websites, videos)
- Making portfolio work that helps them win awards or pitch new clients
- Keeping you “happy enough” to keep the engagement going
They are not rewarded for:
- Diagnosing uncomfortable truths
- Challenging your assumptions
- Prioritizing your outcomes over your opinions
Even well-meaning agencies end up chasing approval, not impact. To your agency, your customer isn’t the customer: You are. It’s not sabotage, it’s just how the game is scored.
2. Priorities: Strategy is usually there to support production
Agencies love to say they “do strategy.” In practice, strategy is often either:
- Backfilled justification for creative work already decided upon, or
- A set of nonsense deliverables (e.g. brand narratives, keyword lists) that sound important but change nothing
Meanwhile, clients often come in with the answer already baked in:
“We need a rebrand.”
“We need a campaign.”
“We need a new website.”
All prescription, no diagnosis.
Everyone’s priorities are in the wrong place. Clients and creatives both want to skip ahead to the fun part (where you can see what you’re buying) and then you’re left wondering why it didn’t work.
3. Dynamics: The polite complicity trap
As someone who’s usually the most business-minded person in a room full of creatives and the most creative person in a room full of business people, let me say this clearly:
- Business people often assume creative people don’t understand business
- Creative people often assume business people will ruin good ideas
- You’re both right
We’ve already established that agencies aren’t incentivized to rock the boat, but add in a power dynamic that prioritizes the client and you get an unspoken agreement that completely warps collaboration: Nobody pushes too hard, everyone nods politely, and the work gets done… without ever really getting to the core problem.
Here are the most common paths through that trap:
What if the problem started earlier than you thought?
Let’s go back to the beginning:
Why did you decide you needed a rebrand in the first place?
It sounds obvious in hindsight, but it’s the clearest sign the strategic work might not have been done.
If your goal was to lift leads and shift perception, then the real question is:
What was broken in the business that led you to those goals?
- Was the value proposition unclear?
- Were customer objections misunderstood?
- Was the market shifting?
- Was your positioning stale, or were internal teams misaligned?
These are strategic problems.
A rebrand might be part of the solution, but without a diagnosis it’s just theater.
And unfortunately, most agencies are happy to start building as soon as you give them something to build. Especially if the budget’s good and the client sounds confident.
The system doesn’t stop you from skipping the hard questions; it rewards you for it, right up until the moment the work doesn’t work.
How to rebuild trust in marketing (and avoid another nothingburger)
Start with structure, not services.
All good marketing follows a 4 step process. If yours didn’t, that’s where to begin.
1. Discovery
Skip this and you’ll regret it later. Discovery is where alignment happens, and where waste gets avoided. It isn’t just research, it’s where you uncover what’s actually true:
- What’s the business problem, and what are the human problems behind it?
- What do you want, and what's getting in the way of you getting it?
- Where are your points of leverage?
- What are the stakes?
2. Strategy
Strategy is the difference between an opinion and a plan. In the most simple terms: If the discovery phase is understanding the critical factors in a situation, strategy is deciding the best way through.
This is where clarity replaces chaos.
- What does success look like?
- Who are you targeting that can make that success a reality?
- What would it take for them to be convinced?
- How can you deliver it?
3. Tactical Planning
Only now can you ask: What do we actually do?
Now that you understand what you want and what it would take to get it, choose channels, messages, timing and offers based on what serves the strategy, not what sounds cool or feels familiar.
At this stage it should be obvious what’s worth spending on (and what isn’t).
4. Execution
This is where the creative work happens, but it’s not art for art’s sake.
It’s execution with purpose, grounded in truth, tied to real goals and outcomes.
Why so many smart companies get stuck
It’s not that your instincts were wrong, BURN, it’s that the system you were working in was designed to produce exactly what you got:
- Creative that looks great but isn’t tied to business goals
- Strategy that justifies production rather than driving it
- Tactics that launch before the real problems are understood
The people involved may have been talented, passionate, and well-intentioned, but the structure of the relationship was never designed to produce clarity, accountability, or results that mattered.
That’s not on you, but it is on you to recognize it now.
Marketing isn’t a creative wildcard. It’s a system for aligning what you say and do with what people actually need. When built right, it drives clarity across teams, trust with customers, and results that matter. But it only works when it’s built on truth, structure, and a real plan.
The creative work only matters when it’s solving the right problem. Otherwise, it’s just a beautiful nothingburger.