The Captain’s Blog ™

There’s a golden rule in marketing that many companies forget. It goes by the acronym of KISS, which stands for “keep it simple, stupid”. This is not to suggest that companies need to keep things simple because we’re all stupid. Rather, it means that the marketer risks being stupid if they fail to keep it simple.

Case in point: the AA has seen the light and today officially re-named its range of UK motor breakdown products:

What was “Option 100″ has now become, simply, “AA Roadside Assistance”.
What was “Option 200″ has become “AA Roadside Assistance & Relay”.
The previous “Option 300″ has become “AA Roadside Assistance, Relay & Home Start”.
And finally, “Option 400″ has become “AA Roadside Assistance, Relay, Relay Plus & Home Start”.

Whilst I’m sure these are similar names to what these products used to be called some time ago, there’s absolutely no shame in reversing a policy if it aids consumer understanding. And this change certainly makes life easier, by removing the need to look up what any given “Option” actually means. So that’s a big gold star for the AA. And a free plug, too, as they deserve it: click here to see their breakdown cover range.

For some of the best examples of this kind of marketing, you need only turn to Ronseal, who coined a winner with their strapline ”it does exactly what it says on the tin”. Having said which, I recently saw a TV ad of theirs where they used the same phrase for a product that didn’t actually come in a tin, so even they’re not immune from looking a bit stupid!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 29th, 2007 at 6:34 pm and is filed under Financial. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.