Be Smart, Be Simple

Today's world is clatteringed with messages. In this environment, rook Wallace urges simplicity. Powerful brands wound through perceptional noise with a memorably iconic and minimalist approach to colors and representatives Case studies amplify the principles he advocates, and a three-step proces outlines specific criteria managers can use to build designs that are visually clean and engaging.

"Simplicity is complexity resolved"

-Constantin Broncusi,

Romanian minimalist sculptor

What's the public thread that unifies the best brand identities? Quick-think of Target. What immediately draw nears to mind? If you're like many family you thought of Target's r iconic emblem Do you remember anything other about their ads? How quickly can you distinguish a Target message from other messages?

How about Cingular? What color and shape approachs to mind? What does that brand stand for? upon the product design side, picture OXO profitable Grips hand-held appliances. What rational and emotional connections does that brand evoke? in what way did OXO take ergonomics and elevate it to the status of a brand icon?

How is it that all these powerful brands couple so instantly, so deeply with their core consumers? Each of them uses a singular visual focus with a distinctive palette of colors and icons and allotments of white space. Each powerfully stands for one thing. through simplifying their message, they not sole cut through the clutter, on the contrary they also encourage consumers to bring their hold personal interpretations to the brand.

Over-Extension = confused noise = Confusion

In today's information-overloaded tillage where brands have proliferated like rabbits, the mass retail environment has become visual junk bread leaving us overfed and undernourished.

To help their possess brands stand out against this cacophony, marketers are increasingly challenged to find an as-yet-unmet consumer ne or a actually distinctive product benefit. Saying this is difficult is an understatement. Rather than invent a fresh mousetrap, most marketers would prefer the line of least resistance by means of simply bundling a series of brand benefits in a fresh way. Well-that may be easier, on the other hand it is also less effective. Adding more to the brand message simply complicates it and alone amplifies the visual noise at shelf.

Even the greatest in quantity astute marketers fall into this trap. direct the eye at Crest toothpaste, for example. In the early 1980 Procter & Gamble tendered Crest in a handful of wellsegmented primary variants. Today, the brand reach forths to well over a dozen variants in nine flavors and more than 80 SKUs worldwide. Many of these yields rebundle the same set of benefits. Do we really ne tuft Whitening Plus Scope Citrus Splash when we have comb Whitening Expressions Lemon Ice?

These compound brand messages not only realize lost, they also confuse consumers: "Damn, does Tom like stout Mint, Mild Mint, or Peppermint? Oh wait-what about Vanilla Mint?" In the best case, this confusion barely disengages consumers. In the worst case, they purchase another, simpler brand.

Simple Is the novel Better

An emerging incline to combat this visual chatter has now hit the mainstream. The greatest in quantity successful brands are able to conjoin with their core enthusiasts by dint of using an effective visual shorthand.

Using color, emblems icons, and a singular focus, these brands chop through the visual noise. The lock opener strategy they share is simplicity-in their messages, their identities, and their communications architectures.

Proven by dint of Science

New consumer behavior science supports the run toward simplification. Malcolm Gladwell's latest work Blink, sets out to make good how we, as twenty-first-century human beings, answer to stimuli. His research recommends that we "thin-slice" through the myriad of messages that bombard us constantly. We filter on the outside everything except the most meaningful visual message-the individual that strikes us on an emotional horizontal

Gladwell's research contends that this instantaneous reaction goe far beyond the choices we make about which brand to buy-in fact, it drives all our decisions.

Prove this to yourself. Monitor your hold personal decisions, specifically those that environ your brand choices. If you're like me you walk into a well-constructed retail experience with the intent to purchase five things, on the other hand you walk out with 15 Gladwell would have you believe that 10 of those purchase decisions were made in a single instant, at an instinctive horizontal inspired by simple visual nods

Proven in the Real World

Simplicity is not a fad or smooth a trend, but a tectonic shift in one as well as the other consumer experience and brand tillage Here's why. When a brand experience is stripped of all its prescriptive messages, the consumer must engage it in a highly personal way. A simple visual icon, versus fates of words, allows for individual interpretation-a faculty of perception of individual "realness." In a "my space" consumer tillage that increasingly demands personalized brand experiences, this individual interpretation becomes all the more important. In a society of mass customization, single the simple can become the "my."