One of the benefits of having smart, sexy friends includes getting smart, sexy advice about your business.
Last night, I held an informal focus group to talk about messaging and design concepts for the new thingsthatarebrown.com, which we’ve been chipping away at all year. I purposely invited a few close friends, none of whom have internet jobs.
My point was to have them evaluate subtly different pieces of copy & design, to get a sense of what each statement / art direction made them think about thingsthatarebrown.
Here are a handful of options I presented for the “what is thingsthatarebrown” copy:
- thingsthatarebrown is a web design studio in Seattle
- thingsthatarebrown is a web design agency in Seattle
- thingsthatarebrown is a snappy little web design agency in Seattle
- thingsthatarebrown is a web design studio. We design content-driven, standards-compliant websites. We’re from Seattle.
- thingsthatarebrown designs useful, beautiful websites.
- thingsthatarebrown is a boutique web design studio. We’re from Seattle.
Come to find out, minor differences in phrasing had a huge impact on their perceptions. In the above list, for example, the word ‘boutique’ made them want to throw up, as did the phrase ‘snappy little’. They loved it when we incorporated ‘we’ or ‘we’ve’. They didn’t care whether we called ourselves an agency or studio, but thought ‘studio’ made us sound more like ourselves. And so on.
I repeated this process for other areas of the site, like the intro pitch on the home page. As in the first example, subtle differences had a big impact.
Probably the biggest advantage of inviting non-internet folks was learning what items were jargon-y, and how people who aren’t familiar with the “industry standard” perceive our choices.
If you’re going through a rebrand or redesign, I encourage you to step away from your computer. Then, run your ideas by the intelligent ladies / gents you drink with on the weekends.
5 Comments
Mike
Jul 14th
That sounds like a really good idea. Did you only have woman in the group? If yes, was this done for a reason? Just curious. Looking forward to seeing what the next iteration of thingsthatarebrown looks like!
Tiffani Jones Brown
Jul 14th
Hey Mike,
Yep, in this group it was only women, but I wouldn’t have minded having men there too—it just turns out that most of my closest friends are ladies.
If I were being scientific about it, I’d probably do a series of meetings, divided by demographic.
Thanks for your comment!
Kenny Meyers
Jul 14th
As a nerd, I have to question the validity of this study for several reasons.
1. All the women are your friends, and they know of your relationship with Matt and how it works. This creates cognitive bias already. So words like “we” have a potentially positive association.
2. All the women are women, and I assume that all your clients or potential clients are not. Which, based on how different sexes respond to your brand name (as the story goes), is problematic.
3. I wasn’t invited… and I bought this new dress and everything.
Tiffani Jones Brown
Jul 14th
Kenny! I thought you’d be offended by the shaved fennel salad!
And you might be right about the science part. The statement they loved the most was, “Thingsthatarebrown is a web design studio run by the hottest most intelligent two people on the web, especially Tiffani’s half of it.”
Next time it’ll be all men, I promise.
Kenny Meyers
Jul 14th
I didn’t even want to mention the shaved fennel salad.
As any nerd or scientist or copywriter or content strategist knows, a good strategy meeting must consist of at least 3 kids scoring money for pot and at least 2-3 piles of at least 3-4 pizza boxes. One of these boxes must be lacking in a pepperoni, with its remnants still remaining, reminding the diner that where once exists greatness, now exists the other stacks of less appealing mediterranean options.
If you’re not doing it this way… YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG.