The even cut

The instruction arrives as a share. Take fifteen per cent out of the account by the end of the month.

Almost every team I have watched does the same thing with it. Fifteen per cent off every campaign, every market, every line, evenly. It takes an afternoon, it looks fair, and nothing has to be defended.

Look at what it does on the ground.

The weak campaign is not closed. It is kept alive at a size where it cannot answer the question it was opened to answer, and a summer of unreadable results follows.

The strong campaign loses the thing that made it strong. Scale was not a luxury there. It was why the brand was visible in a crowded auction and why the price of a result stayed where it did. Trim it and the cost moves against you, so the best line gets worse at the moment the account can least afford it.

Both ends deteriorate. The September report shows an account that softened everywhere for no reason anybody can point at, and from the platform side that is one of the most reliable shapes a stall arrives in.

The reason teams reach for the even cut is not arithmetic. Naming what ends means telling the person who owns the third market that their line is finished until September, in front of the others, and being the one who said it if the summer turns out better than expected. A percentage spreads that thin enough that nobody has to carry any of it.

Take the whole cut out of two things instead, leave the rest at full size, and write down what would bring the two back. That version can be undone in August.

An even cut is a decision not to decide, taken with the confidence of arithmetic.