I do market research, which is the direct opposite of marcom. So my clients come to me with the explicit question, What are we doing that is so stupid, & what do our (current & prospective) clients want us to do differently to better help them?
They are enormously grateful when I can ferret out & discern the end-user needs & realities that their own sales & marketing people cannot, or will not say because it would reveal their own shortcomings.
So they engage me specifically not to be “polite,” but instead be brutally honest & direct to them and their people.
In fact sometimes (like in consulting to Toyota etc.) senior mgt. hires me to tell their underlings things the bosses themselves already know but could not say themselves, due to those convoluted codes of Japanese business etiquette etc.