Why do brands want to make my life more complicated?
Once upon a time brands existed to simplify people’s lives. You couldn’t know, without spending a lot of time and money finding out, what one grocer’s soap was like compared to the other shop on the other side of town. So you bought a brand. A product with a recognisable brand name that was a guarantee of quality.
When Thomas Twining set up his tea merchant’s shop in London in 1706, with its own logo (not that he called it that yet) - he was making the exotic world of this new drink easier and simpler for people to navigate. They didn’t need to know one small dried black leaf from another, Twinings did that for them.
In the jargon of today’s neuroscience and behavioural economists, brands serve as heuristics; a physical and mental shorthand to make our lives easier.
But things have changed, brands aren’t into simplifying people’s lives anymore. They don’t want to make things simple. They want to make them more complex.
This week in Cannes, judges for the titanium lions (and many other categories) will be viewing award entry films that glorify and magnify how complex their brands have made people’s lives. Agencies, media owners, technology start-ups and consultants will strive to outdo each other in promising how much more complicated they can make our lives. They won’t use the word complicated, in its place will be words such as: engaging, interactive, immersive, rich and experiential.
But be in no doubt along with all those buzzwords comes complexity. Brands want you to spend more time, energy, creativity, and often more of your life, its sounds, images and thoughts, with them.
For some brands this is great. Brands that are social, brands that are about external or internal self-image, and brands that are, at their core, participatory or experiential. Nike is about doing stuff - sport, mostly. Activity that gets me to do more stuff, and making doing it more rewarding is great.
But there are lots of brands in lots of categories that aren’t like that. Many of them will go to Cannes, many will want to to be more complicated; to be all about experience. Some may succeed, some will do really good work, but without asking what role their brand plays in the world, and therefore what kinds of experiences they should be providing for people, they may wasting a lot of time and money.
So as well as celebrating those brands that have made our lives more complex (and, more positively, rewarding) at Cannes. Shouldn’t we also be celebrating those brands that continue to make our lives simpler?
The brands that strip away complexity. That don’t demand us to make complex choices. The brands that don’t start from how can I take up more of my purchasers’ time? The UK Government digital service work on www.gov.uk is the best current example of this, but there are few commercial brands taking their lead.
As an industry we are in danger of prescribing one medicine for all brands - engagement, participation, interactivity, call it what you will. We all only have so much time in our lives, and not all of it should be for spending with brands. Not every brand should aspire to take more of our time. As an industry we need to get smarter at asking what kind of brand does our client’s business need? Do we want to make things more complex or simpler and faster?
If we ask these questions we’ll get different answers and, who knows, maybe some different kinds of award winners at Cannes.
