Lessons from a 13th century English Friar to media agencies in 2021
Sometimes simple is best, argues Kaimera chief strategy officer Stewart Gurney.
The desire for simplicity is ancient and deeply rooted in our psychology. It is especially evident during times in which society undergoes upheaval. During periods of change we yearn for the familiar and the easily explainable, our brains are wired in a way that craves simplicity and dislikes difficulty. Yet media agencies continue to thrive on complexity. Complicated jargon, lots of different numbers, endless PowerPoint slides. We continue to make it hard for ourselves and our clients. For Media agencies to take advantage of the changes we’ve seen in the last year and evolve, we must get better at embracing the power of simplicity.
In the Middle Ages a Franciscan Friar named William of Ockham famously argued that “It is useless to do with more what can be done with few”. Occam’s Razor, or the law of parsimony, is the principle that: all things being equal, simpler explanations are generally better than complex ones.
