As a brand planner I have a simple rule. Ideas must be simple. Simple ideas make for good ads. Simple strategies make for good marketing and simple language makes for good communication.

The product for which I am marketing director, Zude.com, aims to be an easy-to-use web authoring tool.  For beginners, intermediates and experts. But the code that goes into making Zude what it is, is amazingly complex. The usability coded into Zude, which allows users to drag-and-drop any web object onto a page (text, pictures, video, widgets, websites) is Einstein-ian. But the consumer benefit — the result — is wonderfully simple.

Finding a powerful branding idea is heavy lifting too. It’s the result of crazy hard work. Inputs from the product itself, consumers, the product architects, research, and management all go into a big planning vessel. That vessel then must meet a catalyst (planner) and the “boil down” begins. As extraneous and secondary brand detail and benefits fall away, things start to take focus. (In planning, knowing what not to use, is three quarters of the battle.) As evaporation takes place the idea gets stronger. It’s very organic. If the end result is a simple statement that meets a consumer need and can be uniquely and elegantly delivered through the product, you have a successful idea.

New York- Presbyterian’s idea, from yesterday’s post, was “amazing. Coke is “refreshment.” See, it’s simple.

Noah Brier, a brand planner has published a fun little app that captures brand meaning in one word. http://www.brandtags.net/  If you can tag a brand in one word, without having to think too hard, then that brand has an idea.