When we’re young, we think big words equal smart ideas. Later, we realize those who use complex language often don’t know what they’re talking about, or don’t want us to know what they’re talking about. In other words, wordy isn’t smart. Simple is. And every organization, from nonprofit to global enterprises, should strive for it—for audience connections and their own bottom line.
But does simple sound the same for everyone? Or can simplicity and originality coexist?
For my money, Alan Siegel is the best person in the world to answer this (and not because his surname is on my paycheck). Co-founder and now chairman emeritus, in the early 1970s, Siegel led the Plain English Campaign “against gobbledygook, jargon and misleading public information.” Over the last fifty years, he has simplified countless concepts across every sector. He also created (and trademarked) Brand Voice, the idea that organizations should sound “clear, coherent and distinctive.”
In 2024, when Siegel stopped by the New York offices for a fireside chat, I asked him:
Is there only one way to sound simple?
I should add that Siegel’s book, Simple: Conquering the Crisis of Complexity, is a touchstone of mine, his piece “Ten Brand Voice Lessons” permanently pinned in my browser. I knew how he might answer, but I wanted to hear it in his voice.
Siegel, who is tall and distinguished, with thick grey hair and a piercing gaze, looked at me like he couldn’t believe I worked for the firm he founded.
“Of course there is,” he said. “What you’re thinking about isn’t simplicity. It’s simplistic.” And for Brand Voice™, this distinction is everything.
Simplicity is the quality of being easy to understand.
Sometimes, an apt metaphor can help us grasp a complicated financial concept. Adding a touch of humor to a product’s caution language makes it memorable and helps humanize the brand.
Simplistic is treating complex issues as simpler than they really are.
If we measure simplicity solely by syllables, we risk tipping into simplistic. That means people might get the message, but not get what they need from it.
Siegel’s answer reminded me of a quote I’d once written on a sticky note:
“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.”
Since Albert Einstein said this decades before Alan Siegel created Brand Voice, I can only assume it was meant for a mathematical context. But the words get at the precise balance we try to strike with language—one that, when done correctly, works like a formula but comes off like an art.
How do you find your simple?
While simple takes many forms, there’s a right form for every organization. Finding it starts with sound strategy, the core idea that underpins a brand. Building that strategy takes going below your organization’s surface to discover how it’s distinct and finding the disconnect between this distinction and external perceptions. It’s an exhaustive process involving interviews, market research and deep collaboration between teams—both yours, and ours. But from it, a beautifully simple foundation emerges, guiding a brand’s entire expression—how it looks, acts and sounds.
Simplicity and originality can and should coexist. But the most important measure of success is authenticity.
That’s how true a brand sounds to its audiences, including the employees who live and breathe it daily. Simplicity and authenticity go hand in hand. If you stop short of telling audiences the truth, you’re in simplistic territory. In Alan Siegel’s “Ten Brand Voice Lessons,” he writes, “Being seen as [having] a conscience is paramount. People want organizations to live up to higher values and own up to mistakes.” If we embellish, we blur the truth; if we whitewash, we strip away the essence.
So here’s the key:
Find what makes your organization special. Then say it everywhere, in the simplest way possible—but no simpler.
Chad Thomas is Associate Director of Brand Communication at global brand consultancy Siegel+Gale.
