Simplicity and limitations, hallowed be thy names

In these pages we often write about possibilities – especially the seemingly limitless possibilities of new marketing and communications tools powered by generative AI.

Every year seems to bring news of a new technology that promises to eradicate the frail, organic messiness of human life and usher in a utopia of convenience and endless optionality for us all. It’s hard not to get swept up in the excitement.

But now it’s time for something else entirely, dear readers. Call it a plea of sorts, or maybe even a prayer: To not forget the pleasures and – gasp! – ‘efficiencies’ of simpler times and limited options.

Complexity kills?
This pining for a simpler time bubbled up in my mind one recent Sunday morning while reading There Are a Bazillion Possible Starbucks Orders — and It’s Killing the Company, in the New York Times.

The gist of the article is right there in its title: complexity is killing Starbucks.

How so? For starters, there’s the myriad ordering and payment options. You can order by app and pay by phone; you can order in person and pay with a credit card. Endless choices!

But that’s not even the meat of the matter.

What’s really killing the company, according to the article’s author Bill Saporito, is menu complexity. He writes:

You’re already in line at Starbucks — having failed to order by app — when you spot one of them. That dude who is looking down not at a cellphone but at the Post-it note that holds the orders of his office mates. Which is confirming that you are going to be late for that next meeting, because this person plans to order six coffee beverages, each of which involves some combination of tall venti grande double-pump, one to four shots of espresso, half-caf, oat milk, nonfat milk, soy milk, milk milk, whipped cream, syrup, brown sugar, white sugar, no sugar and mocha drizzle, from the pike position with two and a half twists.

Phew. I’m exhausted just reading that last sentence – and it seems that’s Saporito’s point.

Uneasy parallels
If you’ve read this far, you’re probably wondering: What on earth does this have to do with New Narrative’s work in thought leadership and communications advisory?

It’s pretty simple: there is an eerily similar ‘endless optionality’ approach to the menu of services we – and many other consultancies – offer.

Of course, we don’t ask clients if they want soy milk or oat milk or milk milk. But I do often catch myself uttering the media and marketing equivalent in meetings with potential clients.

Do you want blogs or videos or podcasts of infographics? A mix of all four? Half and half? Short form or long? Sprinkle in a few LinkedIn blurbs and Outbrain snippets? Add a smidge of AI analysis and content performance dashboarding on top? Three-month campaign, or six? White-labelled or co-branded? Text and design, or just text?

(NB: Fortunately, payments for N/N are comparatively simple. Our clients pay us for our B2B services the old-fashioned way: Via direct transfers into our corporate bank accounts, thank you very much).

Searching for stickiness
True, N/N exists to advise corporate clients on their unique communications challenges – and we are therefore obligated to present them with a range tailor-made options. Off-the-rack solutions will rarely do.

At the same time, endless optionality of the Starbucks variety presents two immediate problems. First, presenting too many choices can paralyse clients. They simply don’t know where to begin with their campaigns. And whatever they do choose can end up feeling like it wasn’t the right choice because there are so many other options on offer.

Second, the volume of options lessens the value of each individual solution. How many times have you turned on Netflix, and, faced with the dazzling menu of 80’s hits, anime, true crime documentaries, rom-coms, and horror flicks, you end up tossing the remote aside and choosing nothing at all because there’s too much and nothing seems to have any lasting appeal?

Less is more
All of this begs the question: Is complexity killing marketing and communications? To that I’d answer not…yet.

In the end, I think it’s best that sellers of communications services present only the options that fit that particular client’s needs. There is no need to brag about all the other things you can do if those services aren’t relevant to the problem at hand. There’s a time and place for upselling, and it’s usually when the current engagement is coming to an end.

And on the other side of the equation, buyers of communications services should accept that any single campaign has limitations and is unlikely to usher in transformational change. A simple blog series is just that – opinions expressed via words on a page – and nothing else. If it doesn’t deliver your desired results after a period of time, try another publishing format. The trick is to avoid adding more to your current campaigns just because more options exist.

Now excuse me while I step away and grab another coffee.

Small, please. Black.