Marketing with Simplicity. It’s harder than you think.

When I was in grade one, I asked my Dad to explain to me what he did at work. Here’s what he said: “I’m the Assistant to the Vice President of Administration at the University of Guelph.” I couldn’t get past the first part. What’s an assistant?

I don’t think I really understood what he did until I was about 12.

So how is it when we grow up?

Today, have you memorized your company’s mission statement? Or maybe you have an elevator speech – the 30-second statement you say to describe what your company does, when you meet the perfect prospect on an elevator ride? Such statements are designed to be short and succinct. Punchy and powerful.

But does anyone understand it? Does anyone care?

Try stating your mission statement or elevator speech to a 12-year old, who is willing to listen. Then ask them to explain what they think you do. Oh….. That bad, huh?

If a 12-year old can understand what you do, and think it’s cool, then all adults – including your perfect prospect – will likely understand and appreciate it too. But if not, then you are just like the rest of the noise cluttering the marketplace.

There’s a reason companies hire marketing communication professionals. Their goal is to create communications that are clear and memorable. One of the important tools to accomplish this is the power of simplicity.

For many marketers, simplicity is a lost art.

Simplicity Defined

As a value, Simplicity means absence of pretense; not complex or complicated or involved; elementary.

It’s interesting this definition starts with the term ‘absence’ which means something is missing. Something is taken away. A good communicator understands the power of this idea.

Rarely do we need to add anything new. Rather, we need to stay focused on a single theme, and pull away all the unnecessary parts until the pure message is revealed.

It’s like Michelangelo chiseling away on a block of marble to reveal the statute of David. He had to remove all the parts that were hiding the real value that was inside.

What are the elementary parts of your brand? Are they clear to you – or cluttered?

The Curse of Knowledge

In their best-selling book Made to Stick, brothers Chip and Dan Heath beautifully profile the power of ‘Simple’ as the first of 6 methods that are proven to create sticky ideas. They also state “becoming an expert in something means that we become more and more fascinated by nuance and complexity.”  This in turn causes the Curse of Knowledge, which they define as the difficulty of remembering what it was like not to know something.

Have you already forgotten?

This can be a serious problem for marketers, particularly if they loose touch with reality from the viewpoint of customers. We see this as a common problem in such business-to-business industries as telecom, technology, and pharmaceuticals, where various acronyms are used routinely in conversation and writing.

To assume your audience – externally or internally – understands everything you communicate is both dangerous and downright lazy. Complexity creeps in slowly, like termites, and spreads over time. But once embedded into organizational culture, it can be extremely complicated to remove (pun intended).

So, how to remedy this problem?

It starts with a willingness to listen and ask questions (even dumb ones), plus humility in the leadership. Including the voice of the customer on a regular basis helps keep everyone grounded. And engage a third party communications professional or advertising agency, who brings no baggage, and will quickly identify the single theme hidden under the layers of complexity rubble.

Or, add a 12-year old to your team.

How have you managed to keep simplicity in your marketing?