‘Simpler is better’ can be a marketing USP – but only sometimes

This is according to new research from the University of Oregon in the United States, which tested the assumption that ‘simpler is better’ and found that most consumers do, indeed, prefer offerings which appear to be easy to use and understand. But making it too much of a selling point comes with a downside. 

“When marketing convinces consumers that things are simple and they inevitably go wrong, consumers get really angry or dissatisfied,” says Nick Light, Assistant Professor of Marketing. His paper, co-authored by Philip Fernbach, a marketing professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, recently appeared in the peer-reviewed Journal of Marketing Research. 

“Simplicity is not a silver bullet,” Light says. “Like all marketing strategies it has its positives and negatives, and those negatives for some companies can be both unexpected and significant.  

“The strategy might work for established companies with track records to back up their claims. But it can be risky for a start-up with no history, or a company in a complex market category where flaws or malfunctions are more common.” 

He believes the lesson for consumers is to try to look beyond reassuring marketing messages of simplicity and do more research to see what features or benefits align with their needs. 

Experience in the business world sparked interest in the topic 

Light’s earlier experience in the business world sparked his interest in the topic. He was a marketing manager at a direct-to-consumer mattress company that promoted its streamlined approach.  

Using the tagline ‘one perfect mattress’, the company offered only one mattress model shipped directly to the consumer’s door, dramatically simplifying the mattress-buying process. 

“Some customers calling with even minor complaints, such as a ding from shipping or a slight discoloration in the fabric, would get really angry,” Light explains.  

“They would say things like, ‘I don’t understand what’s so difficult about this,’ even when the logistics of manufacturing, assembling and shipping are quite complex. These customers were getting overly upset because the product and process had been portrayed as simple.” 

Through experiments, surveys and data analysis, Light found that when consumers view a brand as simple, they think its products are less likely to break or fail, which leads them to be more upset when things go wrong. 

The data also showed that consumers judged the complexity of brands or products based on the complexity of their cognitive association networks, also known as mental representations. For example, when study participants viewed sample advertisements for two different financial-planning firms, they formed mental pictures of the simplicity or complexity of the brand depending on how plain or busy the artwork was and the details provided in each advertisement. 

In summary, the researchers concluded that consumers are less likely to recommend simpler brands after failures, compared to their willingness to recommend more complex brands after failures. 

You can find out more about the research here.