Nerd Alert: When Being Simple Hurts Your Brand

Update: 2025-07-31

Description

Welcome to Nerd Alert, a series of special episodes bridging the gap between marketing academia and practitioners. We're breaking down highly involved, complex research into plain language and takeaways any marketer can use.

In this episode, Elena and Rob reveal how perceived brand simplicity creates higher consumer expectations that backfire when failures occur. They explore why simple brands face harsher judgment than complex ones when things go wrong.

Topics covered:

[01:00 ] "Keep It Simple: Consumer Perceptions of Brand Simplicity and Risk"
[02:00 ] Simplicity versus vagueness in marketing
[03:00 ] How simple brands create lower risk perceptions
[04:00 ] YouTube TV's confusing interface betrays simple expectations
[05:00 ] Mental simplicity equals fewer moving parts
[06:00 ] The white couch analogy for brand disappointment

To learn more, visit marketingarchitects.com/podcast or join our newsletter at marketingarchitects.com/newsletter.

Resources:
Light, N., & Fernbach, P. M. (2024). Keep it simple? Consumer perceptions of brand simplicity and risk. Journal of Marketing Research. https://doi.org/10.1177/00222437241248413

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