We are currently working with a smart new brand bringing a terrific innovation to the senior living market. Even though it is substantially different in terms of features and benefits, its relationship to the Personal Emergency Response System devices (I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!) is close enough that the comparison is vital to speeding understanding of the offer.

I think the key here is that short cuts are critical to capturing attention and identifying a familiar category or reference point. All too often, though, business owners or product managers reject the notion because it’s an approach that doesn’t feel complete or accurate enough. That’s brand out thinking rather than brand in thinking, and it’s a big mistake. The more nuanced and comprehensive you try to make lead messages, the longer and more convoluted they become to your audience, and you lose them before you’ve even gotten their attention.

Remember to forget. Forget all the features and details you know about your offering — pretend to be ignorant — before you evaluate the impact of a lead message. And remember the purpose of a lead message: It’s not to explain but to generate interest in more information with a trim equation of familiar + different.