Use Simplicity and Surprise
I heard messages like 'integrated solutions,' 'wealth management' and 'liquidity parameters. What the customer is hearing is 'blah, blah, blah.' --Chip Heath
Branding won't be effective unless clients remember it—and what you and your company stand for—according to Chip Heath, a professor of organizational behavior at Stanford University and coauthor of Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. When he spoke recently at a conference of financial professionals, some audience members gathered afterward and shared their own branding efforts with him, in the hope, perhaps, that he would bestow his "sticky" nod of approval. "I heard messages like 'integrated solutions,' 'wealth management' and 'liquidity parameters,'" he says. "What the customer is hearing is 'blah, blah, blah.' You have to overcome this insider jargon. Even people who are experts in the field have trouble understanding exactly what those things mean." Instead, Heath prescribes the principles of "stickiness," which are those messages that make an idea—or a brand—unforgettable and appealing, including:
Simplicity. Lose those buzzwords, and then come up with your own indelible phrase.
Surprise. Recount lively stories with an element of unexpected but positive results that drive home your main selling points.
-Chip Heath, professor of organizational behavior at Stanford University in Branding Basics
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