Processes, workflows, standards, and institutional knowledge exist informally or in people’s heads.
When processes exist only in someone's head, every departure, every new hire, and every agency transition risks losing critical institutional knowledge. Documented playbooks are what make marketing organizations scalable.
Lasker on why Kennedy mattered: several great admen could do advertising, "but none of them knew how to teach and define it. Kennedy was the one man who did." Ogilvy wrote his standards down and sent them agency-wide; his 1982 memo "How to Write" begins, "The better you write, the higher you go in Ogilvy & Mather."
• New hires struggle
• Inconsistent execution
• Repeated avoidable mistakes
Owned — Content processes undocumented.
Earned — PR outreach inconsistent.
Paid — Campaign setup varies by person.
Analytics — Reporting logic is tribal knowledge.
AI — Prompt knowledge siloed.
• Document repeatable workflows
• Standardize naming conventions and SOPs
• Build institutional knowledge repositories
