The Complexities Of Simple

I was going to put “Here Lies Marketing” on hiatus for the week on account of the election results, and the way that certain marketers showed themselves to be more adept at pushing night soil than I will ever be, but after a day off I started thinking again, and here I am.

The election results did stir up in me a weird convergence of Steve Jobs and H.L. Mencken.

Mencken coined the phrase, “the Booboisie,” which has never been more apt, and he also noted that “no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people,” which could also be amended to state that, “no one ever lost an election underestimating the intelligence of the American people.”

Honestly, how else can you describe the election of, among others, a millionaire sweatshop owner with the personality of a pellet stove who captivated the populace by lobbing shibboleths like, “Let’s get America moving again”? (By all means, let’s. Let’s disconnect the ol’ tectonic plates and hook up with Europe again. It worked for the pre-Visigoths.)

Jobs’ contribution came in Apple’s early days, when its product designers were directed to wear shirts that read, “I am not the target audience.” It was an unsubtle reminder to not design a computer that causes women with a half-mile radius to spontaneously undress and requires a Rushmore-sized noggin to operate.

I was not the target audience of most of this election’s campaign ads. I have a job, an FM radio, and a brain. That would also make me uncharacteristic of the American public, which is where Mencken comes back in, and where the marketing lesson for the rest of us emerges.

It’s reasonable to assume that your marketing audience in most cases is not comprised solely of Rhodes scholars and Phi Beta Kappas. There is bound to be a George JaMarcus Walker Russell Bush in the crowd.

Given that your crowd is probably going to be a mixture of Ph. Ds and former NBA first-round picks, how do you dumb down appropriately so that you don’t lose the former New Jersey Net who happens to be your venture capitalist?

The answer is: Don’t dumb down. Simplify.

There is a difference. Dumbing down requires you to abrogate respect for your audience. Simplifying is what you should be doing all along.

I f you want to see my face turn Crayola shades, hit me with a directive to dumb something down – or its twin sister, the directive to obfuscate a product or a marketing approach.

I realize that the order to dumb down may seem as stupid as Peter Frampton’s “I’m In You” but may have a kernel of sense at its core, much like Australian Rules Football or John McCain. It may be a sign that the original approach may be unnecessarily complex. But when it’s couched in the philosophy that dumbing down or muddying up is the only way this pig is going to fly, then it’s time to play a little corporate Red Rover and call over the CMO.

You can’t run from the fact that people are afraid of simple and hide behind language to look smarter or fancier or somehow more worthy. Think of the inept mid-level manager and his 5-million-word memos. The challenge is to remove 4,999,899 of those words, get all the salient points across, and retain the proper tone.

One of the most important things you can do as a marketer is embark on an eternal quest for simple. Simple marketing materials. Simple mission statements. Simple product attributes. Simple press releases. Simple pricing. Simple Web sites.

Simple means distilling the many into the precious few. Simple means saying what you have to say and getting out. Simple equates to easy. And easy is the holy grail of marketing.

If you are always simple you’ll never have to dumb down – or if you are called to dumb-down there will be no question but that the authorities should be notified. Furthermore, simple stuff means fewer questions, less confusion, a clearer picture of what your organization is and why it’s special – the stuff many organizations go through elaborate machinations to not quite achieve.

The way to get to simple, if you’re looking for a way, is to continually ask yourself, “What am I trying to say here?” You will almost always give yourself a simple answer. That answer, polished to a dull sheen, is what you go with.

You may spend your entire marketing life on a quest for simple, because others are forever turning your simple personal computer into Brainiac VII. However, it’s a quest worth taking. And it begins with a simple step. Literally.