In the spirit of the headline, I’m going to do away with any long-winded and excessive lead-in, and cut straight to the chase: I implore you to speak and write in simple, easy-to-understand language.
My father was a professional basketball coach, and one of the things he would preach to his players is something he called the ‘KISS Philosophy’, or the notion of ‘Keeping It Simple, Stupid’.
The old man wasn’t a fan of the superfluous or the extravagant. I liked to play with a little bit of flair, so we would clash often, but as I grew up I started to realise that there were ample amounts of merit behind the verbal tirades.
Proving the apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree, some years ago I began to introduce the same KISS Philosophy in the way I worked. It was born out of a frustration with seeing many individuals within the industry far more focused on attempting to sound smart and using big words, rather than simply being understood.
Considering we work in Communications, it makes significantly more sense to me that your audience can actually comprehend what you’re talking about, rather than you being fixated on being perceived as the smartest person in the room.
To that point, an old boss of mine used to say that he would much prefer a useful Planner over a smart Planner.
I took that advice to heart. Not because I’m dumb – though that could easily be argued as well – but because I had sat through one too many meetings where a smug presenter seemingly bedazzled everyone with their intellect, but was ultimately as valuable as the middle of a doughnut.
A vast vocabulary, French Civil War references, use of Archetypes, pictures of the human brain, a heavy dose of heavy numbers, quoting Plato, etc, may all give the impression you’re an absolute genius, and some audiences may even lap it up in the short-term. However, they’ll then convene an hour later and soon realise no one had any idea what the hell you were talking about, nor what possible use any of it was.
Ditch the Thesaurus and just talk like a normal human being.
It’s worth noting that such impracticability isn’t isolated to presentations either. Far too often, client briefs, strategies, creative briefs, and creative idea articulations can all fall into the same trap, and I’d strongly argue these are where we really need to remove our heads from our arses.
I’ll admit it’s certainly something I’ve been guilty of in my career. Heck, I still need to check myself regularly these days.
It’s much savvier to adopt the belief that if the consumer is your ultimate audience, it’s wise to start talking like them as soon as possible. There’s no benefit in waiting until the execution stage to begin communicating just like them. Do it from the start of the process, and you’ll see the creative work better connect with its’ desired audience . . . because you were never disconnected to start with.
I must stress that using easy-to-understand language is not shorthand for being lazy or lacking diligence. Just because the way you communicate shouldn’t be overly complicated, doesn’t mean the thinking behind it shouldn’t be complex, rigorous and well thought through.
Don’t dumb down your thinking, insights, strategy or creative idea.
Just don’t make it so pompous, elitist or jargon-heavy that no one has a clue what you’re talking about.
As a nice rule of thumb, I like to remember an excellent piece of advice I was given: think with a broadsheet brain, speak with a tabloid tongue.
By Ogilvy Australia head of strategy Ryan O’Connell