Options are plentiful for we the people living in so-called developed nations, so how do you decide what to do with them?
Did you marry the "right" person? Did you take the job you loved or the one that paid you a higher salary? (Should you hold out to find one that included both rewards?) Did you say the wrong words to a friend, or pause and hold your tongue? Do you spend more time with your time looking back, looking ahead, or living and breathing in the here and now?
How do you choose your route every day, or what do you do at the proverbial fork in the road?
Brands face options just like we do. And, like we do sometimes, brands take the path of trying to be all things to all people. It's almost like feature creep--the point in time in a product's lifespan when more and more stuff is added because the product owners and developers listened to the (lazy) voice inside their heads that said, "More must be better, right...?"
Simple is beautiful, relevant, and rarely easy to attain. Simple is a brand stating what it is and then staying true to the ethos in its roots. It's uncharted territory for brands and for people: steering with daily purpose toward what's over the horizon, guided by the north star of intuition that is every so often hidden by clouds of uncertainty.