Keeping it Simple

It’s the little things that count- especially when it’s the little things that get in the way.

As a marketing student, I have been taught the conventional wisdom which has kept business running since the dawn of, well, business- you will sell nothing unless you have completely satisfied your customer. This means serving them “hand and foot” to ensure that their experience with your brand or service is nothing short of exceptional.

However, there are times when it might be most appropriate to condense your customer’s potential options for the sake of simplicity
This concept is surprisingly simple yet largely ignored by companies seeking to bolster their sales by serving their customers every need and want. While this is usually a safe business strategy, there are instances where companies go above and beyond- maybe even too much so.

Take this recent example- As a member of Emerson’s American Advertising Federation, I travelled to Texas for the national competition (if you are not familiar with AAF, it is a national organization where students create a competitive campaign for a national brand and present it at the yearly AAF competition to a panel of judges and company representatives). The school paid for rooms at the Hilton hotel, where absurd luxury meets innovation in need of some tweaking.

When I tried to turn on the shower, I realized I might infact need an instruction manual to operate it. Turn on the TV and chennels won’t be displayed, but instead a fully interactive menu dividing content by characteristics such as “free”or “watch” It seemed quite complex to get to any channel through the strange navigational interface.

Although I was at a considerably upscale hotel, I realized that the brand was actually damaging itself through its strange sophistocztions.Simply, you can give me as many pillow chocolates as you would like, but as long as a brand can’t give me what I really want, I will have no reason to stay.