Oh, the Simplexity of it All
Posted on December 31, 2006
Marketing Daily is excited about a new word market researchers plan to confuse consumers with in 2007. Marketing Daily is already calling "Simplexity" the first buzz word of 2007 and rhapsodizes about the impact its going to have on the buying habits of consumers in the future.
Robbie Blinkoff, managing partner of Context-Based Research Group, tells Marketing Daily, "Consumers have been trying to simplify and organize their lives, but they've also been going down the complexity path, and the two are converging. Simplexity will be a synthesis of the two, yet distinctly different."
Ah, the devastating "fear of plainness" that has so terrified designers over the millennia -- those in the Baroque and Rococo periods immediately come to mind. The idea of a company that makes color palettes (Pantone) embracing the "power of nothingness" is just ridiculous. If Pantone carries this to its logical extreme, it will have no colors at all in its palette. Which would inevitably lead to an embracing of bankrupty attorneys.
So the idea gurus are now telling us that the concepts behind Real Simple magazine (boring nothingness with a side of pale green) are evolving into not just simplicity, but complicated simplicity which is, of course, absurd. We don't think that "Simplexity" is not a word that is going to fly with consumers. Consumers are fully aware that the technology behind iPods, computers and plasma tvs is complicated: they don't need a new word to describe it. Televisions are complex; so are microwave ovens. Anyone who gre up watching Star Trek is fully comfortable with the concept of an iPod, a personal computer and a GPS system. In fact, studies show that they are actually annoyed that we haven't gotten to the really cool gadgets yet: like the food synthesizer and the transporters.
Consumers have always rewarded companies that have made technology easier to use: Microsoft was rewarded for Windows, Amazon for its web shopping technology, Google for search and Apple for the iPod. Similar advancements and designs that make new technologies simple for consumers to use will continue to be rewarded. Making up a ridiculous new word isn't going to sell more gadgets. Making cooler gadgets will sell more gadgets.
In the unlikely event that we should we be hit with an attack of the dreaded fear of plainness, we will seek out a competent mental health professional immediately for assistance.