Ignorant creative people. A creative person who has not acquired the knowledge and craft needed to do outstanding work is hazardous to any company's financial health. Talent and inspiration are priceless. But without skill and discipline they can be a menace.

Avoid the pitfall: Pick the right person or people to do your creative. Professional, skilled and proven. Ask about previous successes in situations similar to yours.

Artistes. Self-indulgent creatives who want to express their creativity rather than to meet the advertiser's objectives have been a blight on the marketing communications industry for half a century, and there's no sign that they're going away any time soon. They co-opt the advertiser's budget for their own ego gratification, and do a lot of ineffective advertising in the process.

Avoid the pitfall: Ask creatives who want to do your advertising to describe their best work. If they talk about "creativity" or awards, run, don't walk, away. If they define their best work in terms of bottom-line results, you're on the right track.

Do-It-Yourselfers.  Years of training and experience in a specific industry – whether it's automotive manufacturing, fast food, banking or whatever – are years that weren't spent learning and perfecting marketing communications skills. Which is what effective communicators have been doing all that time. Do-it-yourself creative makes no more sense than do-it-yourself law, accounting or surgery.

Avoid the pitfall:  Don't use the most dangerous creative person of all: you. And don't "help." If you can write as persuasively as your copywriter, get a better copywriter.

Playing it safe.  The most dangerous advertising of all is advertising that plays it safe. Because nobody notices it. Agencies or creative teams – and clients – that go with the expected ad or commercial, or the one least likely to offend anyone (including the competition) usually do invisible advertising. That's a very expensive waste of marketing communications dollars.

Avoid the pitfall: Have the courage to stand out, lead and be different.

Too many cooks. David Ogilvy, one of the giants of marketing communications, summed it up perfectly: "The quality of advertising is inversely proportional to the number of people involved in approving it." Simplicity, clarity, distinctiveness and style are essential to an advertisement's success. And each additional person involved in approving an ad tends to complicate it, muddy up its clarity, obliterate distinctiveness and water down style under a welter of compromise. The result is an ad that doesn't work as effectively as it might have, and that is a waste of money.

Avoid the pitfall: Limit the number of cooks. Pick two – or at most three – people to approve all marketing communications. Same people every time.

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