K.I.S.S.

Quigo knows what they’re doing, and they’re doing it pretty well. They understand John Maeda’s ideas on simplicity. How, as marketers, can we apply Maeda’s ideas and Quigo’s approach to our work?

To me, new products offer the most temptation when it comes to adding unnecessary complexity. When brainstorming, it’s easy to get into the “What if we do this?” phase, taking what could have been a perfectly good product that served a legitimate need and diluting it until nobody cares anymore.

Quigo looked at Google and Yahoo, and saw an opportunity to do one part of what those companies were dabbling in really well. As marketers, it’s our responsibility to find out what it is that our client does really well, and promote that. A campaign should boil down to one simple, differentiating theme that strikes at the true nature of the product.

As a word of caution, as soon as you have something that promises to be everything to everyone, put up your red flags. While we should strive to simplify messaging until it applies to everyone, we should be wary of clients, products or services that try to be everything to everyone.

GM tried to have a car for everyone. They’ve got GM, Chevy, Pontiac, Buick, Saab, Hummer, Saturn and Cadillac. They’ve gotten to the point where they’re just doing too much to be successful at any of it. Saturn has never had a profitable year. Their marketing has become so diluted that Pontiac’s G6 hard top convertible isn’t getting near the attention it deserves. While Buick might have some nice cars, they struggle with a perception of being stale.

You could say the same about Ford, with Lincoln, Mercury, Jaguar. Or Chrysler, with Dodge, Jeep, and Mercedes. The automotive industry is a prime example of large companies that, in trying to have something to appeal to everyone, have diluted their brands, and have lost sales as a result.

The auto industry also offers brands that do it well. Toyota, seeing significant growth right now in the US, keeps it simple. They have the Toyota brand, which markets affordable and reliable automobiles. They have Lexus, which offers luxury automobiles.

Where you may confuse a Mercury model with it’s Ford counterpart, or a Chrysler 300 with a Dodge Charger, or any Chevy truck with it’s GM doppelganger, you’re just not going to confuse a Toyota with a Lexus. They are very different looking automobiles.

Keep it real. Keep it simple. Keep it real simple.