Edge of the Web » effective communication

The language of brand

hannah — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 15:02:58 +0000

If a website can be a unicorn . . . why can't a duck?!

A professor of English has been in the news today because she was thrown out of a New York branch of Starbucks for refusing to use the chain’s choice of phrasing.

Apparently she was ordering a plain multi-grain bagel, and the barista wouldn’t serve her unless she used the phrase “without butter and cheese”.

Now, during my long and distinguished career serving coffee (part-time when I was at school), I’ve never told a customer they can’t make an order unless they use the designated word combination as authorised by the company.

Starbucks are pretty smart by controlling the words and phrases used in their shops, by using terms like ‘grande’ instead of ‘large’ they’ve altered the vocabulary to give them a more continental and classy feel. Changing the phrases gives them control and branding beyond the products and into the actual process of ordering itself.

However, you get to a point where your carefully crafted vocab ends up being a barrier to effective communication. If staff only speak Starbucks, and can’t translate ‘large’ into ‘grande’ then you’re in trouble.

Personally I think I’m going to start calling Edge of the Web designed sites ‘unicorns’. We’d be the only unicorn designers in the world – even gods can’t lay claim to that one!

Business unicorns ready in 1 day. It’s catchy, but something tells me we won’t get much business if we insist all our customers ask us for unicorns!

“Singing Friday”

hannah — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 09:00:59 +0000

"Interpretive dance Friday" coming to an office near you!

A friend of mine has introduced “singing Friday” to his office.

“Singing Friday” involves people forsaking the dull, boring medium of speech, and singing to each other instead. Thus far it has proved controversial, with half the office embracing the magic, and half being miserable killjoys (is it obvious whose side I’m on?).

But “singing Friday” also reminded me of a customer of ours, The Conservatory Centre, who have testimonials on their site. One of the testimonials isn’t a letter, or statement – it’s a poem!

It’s really quite striking when you see it, not to mention that someone writing a poem about your business really shows how highly they valued it.

A little bit of variation in communication keeps things interesting, and shows quite a lot of imagination.

My friend is now looking forward to next week, and “interpretive dance Friday” . . . . I may get him a leotard. . . . !

Newspaper advertising is more effective than a website?

thomas — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 16:14:33 +0000

When you advertise in print, the competition for attention means you’d better dumb down your message and make it big, bold and obvious.

When you advertise in print, the restricting nature of the medium forces you to use only static text and few (if any) colours for basic images.

When you advertise in print, the cost of the space forces you to restrict the number of words you write.

Then along came the internet and everything changed. The problem is… it didn’t need to change.

The problem is that we all forgot that one thing remains consistent in all forms of advertising:

“the audience time is precious, and you can’t afford to waste it”

So, I love your new website with it’s flash animation and tasteful colour scheme, and technical data, and story about how you started your business in a damp shoebox you found in a bin, and how you put customers first and you put value and quality above all, and that you say you are number 1, and your glowing testimonials, and your pictures of the team, and your news feed, and your twitter feed, and your facebook page blah blah blah.

But you (yes YOU) forgot that my time was precious. You got so carried away in what you thought was “marketing” and “branding” that you forgot to tell me what you sell and why I should buy it in as few words as you could articulate it.

You were so busy trying to word “professional” sentences telling me why you are so good, and honest and customer focussed, that you forgot to just tell me what I want to know…do you have what I want, and what does it cost.

If you can do that, I might (MIGHT) have a browse through your site and make my own decisions about how good you appear to be. (Hint: writing “We pride ourselves on XYZ” will not make me beleive it).

Just because the medium of advertising changed, didn’t mean that people suddenly couldn’t get enough of your advertising. People didn’t suddenly develop an inclination to go hunting for company profiles and cheesy animation.

As a new business owner (or new to the internet) it looks good when you see your name up in lights (or pixels). You felt all posh and businessy when you found that profound quote, or the metaphoric picture of the sapling (acorn, puzzle, cog, piggy bank, smiling team). It looks good to you…but I see Apple, and Coca Cola and Marks & Spencer advertising all the time. That means I’m unlikely to be impressed by it unless you have done something truly EXTRAORDINARY.

Of course I’m not saying don’t have a good looking website, don’t have any animation, testimonials, company history, quotes, stock photography. Of course I’m not saying that!

What I’m saying is let me access the cheese when I choose. Treat me like a print reader, and that is to say communicate with me like your life depends on it, and I might just taste your brie.