Simplicity: Make complicated messages resonate with your audience

The simplicity of the messages is one of the hardest things to achieve, but it is essential if you want to cut it short to make an impact.

Here Ian Bates, founder and creative partner of Firehaus, explores the importance of concise communication and messaging.

Just look at the Hands Face Space message during the pandemic: presented months later, it was the government’s third attempt to overcome it with simple messages, but, according to the investigation, the only one that resonated and lasted. The ONS reported that more than 8 out of 10 adults saw that “hands, face, space” was important in slowing the spread of COVID-19.

It is a challenge for everyone, but especially for those in the research, innovation and business sectors. By its very nature, anything straddling academia and commerce involves serious “boffinry.” And fine and good, but that shouldn’t stop you from communicating. Sophistication is making all these smart things shrink so that they can have an impact in the real world.

So how do you get simple, powerful messages for any business in this space?

Simplicity is key, don’t get lost in the details

A common theme with many organizations is that they spend too much time working on the detail of their initiatives instead of finding the most interesting way to tell a powerful story. For example, we often work with innovation and business departments within higher education that are full of multiple initiatives, acronyms, and departments. Much of their energy is spent organizing and streamlining this complex setup, and frankly, sometimes it’s impossible, they can’t be dismantled. Instead, progress is made when we take a step back and look at the higher purpose of all groups, not their individual goals.

Think about the general narrative

People often gravitate towards detail and use it as a way to demonstrate effectiveness. But the problem is that few listen and even less understand. With the oversupply of most sectors, the cut is a huge challenge, so we always recommend that organizations find the truth in the details, but continue to increase their history to make an impact.

For example, a technology start-up from the global prosthesis industry created by a team of academics will become an obsession story, because that’s what it will resonate with. And an academic consortium addressing the issues arising from the spread of new technologies in the industry now has a history of pioneering human vision. In each case, the general story has been developed in detail into larger, more insightful, interesting, and striking stories.

Critically, this not only helps to engage the external audience, but also the internal audience, providing clarity to the team and other stakeholders.

Following the right process to get a simple but effective message

You may not do well the first time and it may change over time, but a simple process you can follow would be:

Set the reality of your current position. Look inward at your characteristics, benefits, and people to find your purpose: why you exist as an organization, and what makes you and your bedmates wake up in the morning. But also look at your competitors, detractors, and fans from the outside to see what they see in you and how you stand out (you don’t always need to differentiate them) in their eyes.
Create your brand story or idea. Once you’ve figured out how to distinguish yourself, you’ll need to find a way to say this, which it is, and I’ll emphasize it by effect, captivating attention and not boring. It’s disappointing how many really different organizations are buried under what we call a “word salad”. Here you will need some creativity.
Incorporate this idea into the behavior of your organization. Ultimately, branding is what you do, not what you say you are. Once you have your distinctive idea, return it to the organization and work hard to find all the places where you can apply it to your behavior to reinforce it in the minds of everyone around you.

Don’t forget who you’re trying to reach

The thing is, the client, potential partners, and even investors often forget about building the narrative until it’s too late. Then you end up with presentations, a website and an email program that ticks all the boxes you think you should do but says … not much or a lot of people.

82% of investors will only invest in companies with a strong brand. Make sure you have someone in front of you.

How simplicity can be achieved from an external perspective

Sophistication lies in simplicity, and to achieve this, founders, leaders, academics, etc., are best associated with an independent party from an early stage that is willing to listen, learn, and help shape. to the narrative. We call it external perspective. It means keeping all the detailed knowledge with the home teams, but increasing it with the challenges of an independent party working to achieve the same goal, not another.

So far no one was able to send in the perfect solution, which is not strange. If there were, there would be many contenders.