Siegel+Gale Chairman and CEO Alan Siegel provides a clear, simple solution to complex credit card agreements on CNN’s Situation Room.
Watch “A rush to simplify credit card ‘gobbledygook’“.
Archive for November, 2009
Nov 20th, 2009 by Tom Blackett
The Evolution of the Customer Experience in Financial Services
This white paper is based on comments made by Tom Blackett, Non-Executive Chairman, Siegel+Gale UK, for the Financial Services Forum on October 13, 2009.
Blackett discussed how to make the customer experience count, opening with thoughts on the long road the financial services industry has taken toward competitiveness and the acknowledgement that customers really matter. Blackett later addressed the concept of ‘touch points’–specifically the experience customers have at these touch points and how they affect brand loyalty and customers’ willingness to recommend products or service to others. He concluded with an introduction to simplicity – arguing that the more accessible companies make things like statements, application forms, customer agreements and contracts, the more likely they’ll have happy and trusting customers.
Click here to view the white paper.
Nov 20th, 2009 by Gail Nelson
Non-Latin Domain Names Bring Costs, Opportunities
What will URLs with non-Latin characters mean for your business?
Companies with an international presence have always needed increased linguistic and cultural knowledge to target foreign markets, but a recent decision by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) will alter how companies approach their web presence by making domain name extensions available in non-Latin characters.
Click here to view full article.
Nov 18th, 2009 by Alan Siegel
Siegel+Gale Chairman and CEO Alan Siegel Joins John Jay College Foundation Board
NEW YORK – November 18, 2009 – John Jay College of Criminal Justice today announced the appointment of Alan Siegel to the John Jay College Foundation Board. Mr. Siegel is Founder and CEO of Siegel+Gale, one of the world’s premier strategic branding companies.
“Over its 40-year history, Siegel+Gale, led by Alan Siegel, has demonstrated that successful brands live or die through the customer experience they deliver, and that this extends far beyond advertising or communications,” says Jeremy Travis, President of John Jay College. “Alan’s genius is his ability to distill the essence of an organization into its own distinctive ‘voice’ that then translates into every medium – powerfully, clearly, and simply. This skill has never been more needed than it is today. His wealth of knowledge and expertise will be invaluable as we develop our strategic plan for the future growth of John Jay.”
Alan Siegel is a founder of the Plain Language movement. Siegel+Gale’s “Simple is Smart” philosophy applies the art and science of simplicity to create branding programs that have helped many of the world’s best-known organizations excel.
“John Jay is an impressive institution that has enormous appeal to young people who want to build careers as public servants in Justice and Social Services. Jeremy Travis has grown the college to an impressive stature, and there is no stopping him. I very much look forward to supporting and helping to accelerate the College’s upward trajectory,” says Mr. Siegel.
As consultant, teacher, and commentator, Mr. Siegel’s influence extends to creating strategic branding programs for organizations such as 3M, American Express, AARP, the National Basketball Association, Caterpillar, The Girl Scouts, Xerox, CBS, Phoenix House, and The Legal Aid Society. He also serves on the boards of numerous business and cultural organizations, including the Museum of Arts and Design, the Authors Guild Foundation, Hamptons International Film Festival, Turnaround for Children, Business for Diplomatic Action, Lapham’s Quarterly, and the American Theater Wing, where he is a TONY Awards voter.
He is the author of an extensive series of personal guides for The Wall Street Journal, including the bestseller, The Wall Street Journal Guide to Understanding Money and Markets (Lightbulb Press), as well as Writing Contracts in Plain English (West Publishing) and Simplified Consumer Credit Forms (Warren Gorham & Lamont). One of the world’s foremost collectors of fine photographs, he is also the author of One Man’s Eye: Photographs from the Alan Siegel Collection, which was published by Harry N. Abrams in October 2000, and Step Right This Way: The Photographs of Edward J. Kelty, published by Barnes & Noble in October 2002.
In December 2006, Jorge Pinto Books published Alan Siegel on Branding and Clear Communications by Louis J. Slovinsky as part of its Working Biographies series.
A graduate of Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Mr. Siegel also attended New York University Law School, the School of Visual Arts and Alexei Brodovich’s Design Laboratory.
If you would like to speak with Alan Siegel, or for more information about Siegel+Gale, please contact Gail Nelson of Siegel+Gale at 212-453-0468 or gnelson@siegelgale.com.
Nov 10th, 2009 by Larry Vincent
Healthcare for your brand on a budget
Average Americans aren’t the only ones fretting over healthcare issues. Brand health is becoming one of the hottest topics in the CMO community. Two forces are driving the sudden interest in metrics and “brand dashboards.” Managers are growing more metrics-focused because of the rising use of online media in the total marketing mix. Online media allows managers to see a direct cause-and-effect relationship between a demand generation initiative and sales. It’s only natural that the same managers would start to ask, “How much is my brand driving sales?”
The other factor is money, or more precisely, the scarcity of money. Marketing budgets are usually the last to recover when an economy rises from the ashes of a recession. Every expense is scrutinized. Before investing money on a brand, it’s helpful to assess your brand’s overall health. Think about it: Would you be willing to let a doctor perform a procedure on your body without first doing an examination? Probably not.
When funds are scarce and investments are heavily scrutinized, you owe it to your shareholders to assess your state of wellness, or lack thereof. Unfortunately, many managers think that measuring brand health is a massive endeavor that requires quant jocks running loose with expensive studies, time-consuming audits, and complex statistical analyses. They fear that in the end they’ll be sitting around a table scratching their heads trying to make sense of all the data sets, still clueless where to invest. It doesn’t have to be this way. Here are four time-tested diagnostic areas to consider when assessing your brand’s health.
To read the full article click here.
Nov 6th, 2009 by Howard Belk
Mickey Mouse Channels Dennis the Menace … and Chucky
Seems Disney is considering a Dennis the Menace meets Chucky refresh of Mickey Mouse. (See “After Mickey’s Makeover, Less Mr. Nice Guy,” the New York Times, November 5, 2009.) It seems risky, but millions of us contributed to DC Comics’ success when they let us see the dark side of Batman. A conflicted, sometimes tortured Batman rejuvenated the franchise and dramatically broadened the superhero’s audience. Sophisticated kids today are not engaged by characters who verge on the dogmatic or overly simplistic. Too nice, or too mean, is uninteresting. Even the hero of THE INCREDIBLES had flaws. Kids saw that and laughed.
Disney has a relevancy issue with their spokesmouse because they for so long used Mickey as a symbol of the company, not a character involved in situations that have any relevance to youth. Mickey has sold out, gone corporate, and lost all texture.
It’s vital that Mickey gets another dimension added to his personality. It will confirm for kids that you can be one way, AND another, rather than this simplistic, all or nothing type of creature. That’s simply too much to live up to.
A darker Mickey with a heightened survival mode, delivered in a gaming environment should connect with youngsters if only because kids will be excited to see how they can help Mickey “survive” in this new world. Chronicles of mischievous schemes, tight spots, and narrow escapes should give an old character a new chance to connect with the timeless scamp that resides in every kid. And because today video games are one of the main channels through which kids connect with characters, this makes sense.
In the end however, it will come down to the sense of morality and hopefulness that Mickey has always stood for. If breaking the rules means creativity, ingenuity, smarts and empathy, then bring it on, badass mouse! If our new Mickey is cunning, callous, wasteful, and lewd, then Disney has set its own mousetrap.
Nov 5th, 2009 by Irene Etzkorn
Well-intentioned but misguided
Food marketers have latched onto the idea that having only a few ingredients will make their products appealing to consumers “Marketers such as Starbucks discover that simple sells,” USA Today, October 28, 2009). This is as bad as using readability formulas to judge whether a document is understandable.
What consumers really crave is a short list of familiar, wholesome ingredients. We respond to the idea of just five ingredients because we assume that those five won’t be dehydrated potato flakes, monosodium glutamate, whey solids, artificial coloring and artificial flavoring.
A shorter list may be quicker to read and therefore more transparent, but transparency itself is not the goal—we need to focus on what is revealed behind the curtain. To know all is definitely not to forgive all.
Nov 5th, 2009 by Gail Nelson
Transparency makes a comeback in Washington
Judging by the standing-room only crowd from government, academia and the private sector at last week’s Center for Plain Language Symposium in Washington DC, transparency is again a major focus in government. Siegel+Gale was the exclusive sponsor of the Symposium entitled “Achieving transparency through plain language” on October 30, 2009, which featured an impressive roster of speakers on information design, plain language initiatives in government, and clarity and transparency in financial communications.
Jodi Patterson of the IRS presented a major IRS initiative to clarify taxpayer correspondence. Dona Wong, Strategy Director of Information Design at Siegel+Gale presented “The grammar of graphics,”a primer in effective information design techniques. Other highlights included a study on how plain language at the ballot box impacts election results and a fascinating and important Harvard Business School study on how educational information graphics on credit card bills can positively influence consumer credit behavior. The keynote address was given by Congressman Bruce Braley (D-Iowa), sponsor of the Plain Language Act of 2009, which is making its way through Congress.
The fact that plain language legislation is being introduced in 2009 illustrates how far we still have to go to make clarity and transparency the standard in Washington. It’s been 28 years since President Carter ushered in the Paperwork Reduction Act in 1981. Back in the early 1980s, no one would have predicted that such a common-sense idea – making information accessible and understandable to American citizens—would still need to be debated and legislated almost thirty years later. As Alan Siegel stated in his opening remarks at the symposium, “Clarity cannot be legislated, just like common sense cannot be taught.” But legislation can serve as an important guidepost to lead us on the path to clearer communications.
While there is still much work to be done, it is heartening that there is a renewed focus on transparency in Congress and in the White House, and growing recognition that clarity is the surest path forward to rebuild trust in many of our most important public and private institutions. The Plain Language symposium was one small step in the right direction. Siegel+Gale plans to be involved all along the way.
Nov 3rd, 2009 by Alan Siegel
Alan Siegel Radio Interview on Simplification
Alan Siegel describes the communication gap between government and the citizens it is supposed to serve in an interview with Federal News Radio.