Why less is more in marketing and business
Lessons on minimisation and simplification from Apple and KFC
I read Ken Segall’s 2012 book on Apple’s marketing and strategy, Insanely Simple, last week.
In one of the early chapters, the star adman tells this story:
On his return to Apple, Steve inherited a line of products that was way too complicated. Under former CEO John Sculley, management’s attempts to please everyone had resulted in a bewildering array of computer models, including Quadra, Performa, Macintosh LC, PowerBook, and Power Macintosh.
The company’s offerings were beige and boring, and having to support so many models was splintering resources, from R & D to marketing. Worst of all, the sheer number of choices was creating confusion for customers and employees alike. It was bad business all the way around.
Famously, Jobs’ solution once he took over was to ruthlessly simplify Apple’s product offerings.
Segall credits this simplification as the most important event in the history of Apple’s legendary resurgence:
Steve was going to transition Apple from its multitude of computer models to a simple grid of four: laptops for consumers and pros, and desktops for consumers and pros. It was one of the most dramatic minimisations of a product line in technology history.
Steve’s product plan was the foundation for a new business model that would come to shake the world. By focusing on making fewer, higher profile products, and by refusing to compromise on quality, Apple was able to achieve greater efficiency while charging a premium price.
It worked, didn’t it? That philosophy has continued until the present day, leading them to phenomenal results. For Apple, less has always been more.
I saw this in action very early in my career, but at an unlikely place.
Sometime in late 2012 or early 2013, a new KFC opened at the Chennai technology park where the Freshworks office is. We were delighted, and went there almost every other day. But there was something I noticed in our early days there, even as I happily stood in line to order the Zinger burger I loved (and still do).
The menu was too complicated.
There were a few staples: the Zinger, the fried chicken buckets, the chicken popcorn, and a few vegetarian options. Then there were a few drinks, which I forget the names of. And you could order differing combinations of these.
So far so good.
The branch was clearly successful, and I assume they were doing well elsewhere as well.
Because they then expanded the menu, with their fiery chicken burgers, a spicy variant of their fried chicken, and a few other things.
True to form, we immediately went and checked these out. The food was good, there was nothing wrong with it at all.
But soon we realised that all was not well.
The new items on the menu meant that the number of combos you could order went up by an incredible number of permutations. This made it too much for us to decide between, so we would take a lot of time, and thoroughly confuse the person at the counter. He had to figure out which one among the now too many combos we had ordered, and then bill it correctly. Now imagine if someone wanted to change their order at the last minute, as I saw happen multiple times. This would result in utter pandemonium, and for most of us, it was too much hassle in the middle of a work day.
I can’t say for sure but this must have resulted in bad sales.
Because they changed it. I don’t remember exactly when, but they went back to a simpler, clearer set of combos, which is what it should have been in the first place.
Even for a place that sells fried chicken by the bucketful, less was more.
There are a lot of takeaways from the above two stories, but one I really want to draw attention to is that simplification of your offerings is not just good for your customers, it’s also good for your employees. Because it’s simpler for them to figure out what customers want and give it to them, they can aim for and provide great service.
It’s just good business.
For a marketer, a very obvious learning is that if you are not selling folks a singular value proposition, or at least something prospects can immediately understand, then you can safely assume that you are confusing them. This is good insight for any sort of marketing activity: messaging, outreach, even events.
But it’s not just that.
At startups, technology companies, and marketing teams, we are constantly working under less than perfect conditions, with tight timelines, strict budgets, and unavailable talent.
If we concentrate on the important, essential parts of what we are trying to do, and snip away at the things that don’t add to the core value, we’ll be well on the way to great work.