What do you get when you hire consultants? You get a four-year-long campaign to convince beer drinkers of your product’s “drinkability.” A campaign that failed miserably, because, as the marketing executives at Anheuser-Busch (BUD) should have asked: Shouldn’t we assume drinkability, and work from there?

But they didn’t ask that; rather, they slavishly followed Cambridge Group’s advice to make “drinkability” the focus of A-B’s campaign for Bud Light, which according to Advertising Age is “considered a major factor in Bud Light posting the first full-year sales decline in its history.”

What’s interesting about Ad Age’s examination of the now-abandoned campaign is that the reporter, Jeremy Mullman, doesn’t even really address what was wrong with it. He just assumes as an obvious fact that if you have to market your liquid beverage as “drinkable,” you’re already behind.

Rather, Mullman takes on the question of whether consultants should even be involved in creating marketing campaigns, and if they are, how much power they should have. As I’ve seen close-up in several of the news media organizations I’ve worked for, overreliance on consultants (and focus groups) is the bane of any creative business. It happens because in-house managers (or editors) want to cover their asses. Hiring a consultant is a good way to outsource responsibility. If things go wrong, you can blame the consultant–hey, you followed the report!. But if they go right, you still look good–you hired the consultant!

Ad Age says fear-driven marketing executives, “skating on ever-thinner ice, are trying to bring a more scientific approach to a discipline traditionally heavily reliant on gut calls.” But science goes only so far in a business that relies on human connection. Gut calls can be risky, but business relies on risk for success. More importantly, gut calls are human. Consultants’ reports aren’t.

Consultants and focus groups can be helpful for things like analyzing demographics and forecasting trends. But when it comes time to actually communicate with people, you have to leave the science behind. People don’t respond to meaningless marketing jargon like “drinkability,” they respond to genuine communication. If “drinkability” is supposed to mean “tastes good” (is it? I’m still not sure), then find an effective way to tell beer drinkers that your beer tastes good. Miller Lite did that, and even managed to add a second concept, and “Tastes Great, Less Filling” became one of the most effective ad campaigns in history. Human communication, using simple language.