As many marketers enter planning season, a common pitfall is agreeing to so-called Stress Objectives – targets that look and sound good but are unrealistic and unattainable.

Whether you call them Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-Bound (SMART) objectives, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) or Objectives and Key Results (OKRs), the principle is the same: setting targets for the year ahead to measure success.

This is a critical part of managing any team or individual contributor – yet we often see marketers setting themselves up for failure by agreeing to what we’ve dubbed Stress Objectives: impossible goals that cannot be reached.

For example, let’s say that Acme Corp aims to be the leader in a new Gartner Magic Quadrant for Mind-Reading Software. Yet, Acme’s product is a dud – lacking features, behind in competitiveness and achieving only mediocre customer ratings.

In Acme’s case, no matter how much lipstick you apply to the pig – for example, flashy presentations, catchy slogans and lavish entertainment for influencers, plus paid strategic advisory sessions – you’ll still struggle to achieve a leadership position in the resulting report. Therefore, this is a Stress Objective. Whatever you do, success will still elude you.

Destrier’s latest client advisory delves into the issue more deeply, offering alternative objectives to satisfy even the most demanding senior managers and outlining tactics enabling marketers to meet and possibly even exceed those goals.

Get in touch if you’d like a copy.

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Destrier is known for identifying and employing novel approaches that help reboot strategic marketing programs. We enable in-house teams to adapt to the ever-changing landscapes of technology and analyst influence – and make a bigger impact.