Making the Complex Simple: Brand Messaging

Posted by Julee Balko on 31 March 2009 | 0 Comments

Tags: Branding

How messaging for a vacuum cleaner reveals a formula for technology brands that won’t suck.

I am a frugal person. I would never expect to want to pay over 400 dollars on a vacuum. (Mind you, I haven’t.) But I do always watch the Dyson vacuum commercials when they come on TV. Not because I like to clean. But mainly because the simplicity of the message always strikes me and I think, how can we do this for our clients? How can we get down to that one benefit that will speak to the audience and make them pay attention?

With Dyson, they simply show how the vacuum has a unique ball that lets it pivot or “turn on a dime.” If you haven’t watched the ad yet, watch it now. In general, the ads always aim to point out one benefit. They’re shot to make the vacuum as hero and look sleek and elegant. And the result has turned Dyson into a status symbol. Yes, you heard me. A vacuum is now something you can flaunt to your friends. I’ve even caught myself saying longingly, “Wow you have a Dyson. Is it awesome?” And have listened as friends gush about it like it was a top-of-the-line Mercedes.

Now, I know most of us aren’t in the business of selling vacuums, but there is a lot to learn from their approach. In fact, their simplicity reveals the three mistakes that make most technology marketing suck.

Mistake 1: Features. Features. Features.
Dyson could have easily listed out the vacuum’s 500 features. I see these laundry lists in many of our clients’ industry trade pubs. It’s like companies think listing out every feature means that hopefully one of them will spark someone to say, “Oh wow, software that was developed using the Java J2EE framework interoperable with relational databases including PostgreSQL (open source) and Oracle 10G. Sign me up!” What ever happened to benefits? That’s what our customers want to hear. What will our solutions do for them? How will their job improve? What will make life easier?

Mistake 2: The Board of Directors thinks the copy is perfect.
The language of the Dyson ad is simple. Clear. To the point. You can tell it didn’t go through rounds of revisions or a bureaucratic process. Read through the latest PharmaVoice and you’ll see ads that have been written by committee. It’s easy to understand how it happens. But at the end of the day, is that language pleasing your customers? Do they even get it? Do they care? Or will they simply tune it out?

Mistake 3: Our technology is amazing.
We specialize in technology and healthcare brands. So yeah, we all appreciate technology. And the Dyson ad could show some detailed engineering diagrams. But the technology isn’t what’s going to make people want to pay attention to the ad. It’s what the technology will do for them. Look through the latest Applied Clinical Trial magazine and you’ll see ad after ad that leads with technology. And when I see messaging that features engineering wonderment, I often wonder, how hard is it to implement? How much will it cost? Is it going to be complicated?  Because let’s face it, technology alone can’t solve much. And that’s how those ads make me feel. Alone. Alone and burdened with some complicated technology that I won’t be able to figure out. (Probably not the message you want your customers to have either.)

So the real question is, have the Dyson ads worked? Dyson is now the best-selling vacuum cleaner in Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand. In no time the U.K. company vaulted to the No.2 position behind longtime leader Maytag’s Hoover. Total worldwide sales are over 10 million units. Thanks to its unique design, you can even find Dyson vacuum cleaners in the permanent collection at numerous museums, including the London Science Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris. Now that’s the power of marketing that doesn’t suck.