I was recently searching for something on the internet and stumbled across a company promoting products using video. Roughly five product lines were being displayed, including several products under each product line. There was a problem, however.

Each video had the same introduction screen with the name of the company displayed on each. There was no description or product name shown for any of the videos. I was looking at a nicely laid out page with dozens of videos that all looked the same.

I did know which company was offering the products due to the introduction screen of each video. There was no way to tell what each video was promoting without watching them individually. Who has time for that?

The company responsible had taken the time to include their name on the intro of each video but neglected to let us know what product each video promoted. In essence, they were advertising their failure.

I am sure the company had good intentions. James C. Collins, American author, speaker, and consultant, once stated, "Bad decisions made with good intentions, are still bad decisions." In other words, using modern techniques to market your products does not outweigh the fact that you failed to identify the products.

You may notice that I did not include the name of the company in this article. I excluded it because I may be next. I may be the next person to neglect to think something through. We all make mistakes (albeit this is a big one), so we should take this as an opportunity to learn, not point fingers. So, what did we discover?

We figured out that we should review every promotion before we submit it to the public. It would be a good idea to have someone else examine the project with a fresh set of eyes. We must do our very best to put ourselves in the shoes of our customers. They do not know everything that we know (like the names of the products in the videos). And finally, create, test, and review!

Ultimately, it is up to us to determine if a promotional campaign or display is ready for public viewing. We need to be diligent when creating, testing and reviewing each project. If we aren't, we may end up advertising our failures.