When we talk about creative fields and endeavors, we often think of art, music, photography, and architecture. But when we talk about real creativity, nothing comes close to the granddaddy of them all – marketing. From ideating ad campaigns that leave buyers wondering about the link between the product and ad messaging to verbal and written sleight of hand through made-up anecdotes and cherry-picked stats, marketing gets these fields on their knees, leaving them in sheer awe.
But even in marketing, very few industries come close to SaaS (Software as a Service) when it comes to being wacky. SaaS marketers spend the majority of their time coming up with creative strategies to leave their audience flabbergasted.
Off the top of our heads, some of the most innovative examples of SaaS marketing we can think of are blindly imitating Slack’s illustration voice, writing content for eighth graders (you’re a pariah if you use a word with more than five syllables), and implementing passive-aggressive messaging on misfired exit intent pop-ups (No, Steve, I really don’t wanna improve my sign-up rate by 47%. Just let me read the blog post).
However, a recent turn of events sent shockwaves through the SaaS marketing ecosystem as Todofella, a to-do list app for teams, unveiled its rebranded marketing properties.
The reason behind this buzz? The clearly described value proposition on the redesigned website.
“The SaaS industry has been shrouded in vagueness for far too long, and we wanted to stand out in this sea of similarity,” said Mark Aterman (CMO of Todofella). He further said, “Initially, we thought we’d do something audacious, something out-of-the-box. But ultimately, we did a 180-degree turn and decided to KISS (keep it simple, stupid!). Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, they say.”
Mark continued, “Initially, we considered ‘Productivity Simplified,’ ‘Your Omnichannel Productivity Platform,’ and ‘Revolutionizing Productivity – One Task at a Time’ for the website messaging, but none of them had that simplicity we were aiming for. Ultimately, we decided to go with ‘A Friendly, Reliable To-Do List App for Your Team’ as it precisely communicated what the app is.”
Todofella didn’t stop just at the messaging. They even revamped their pricing page by getting rid of the bothersome call-for-price strategy. The pricing page now clearly mentions the monthly and annual pricing tiers. It seems that the company is committed to communicating the ethos of clarity, simplicity, and transparency at every marketing touchpoint.
This rebranding exercise has polarized the SaaS marketing ecosystem into two groups.
On one hand, there’s a group of marketers who are excited to see this change. Karen Smith, a recent marketing and communications grad, said, “Todofella’s rebranding efforts are a breath of fresh air. We marketers have an affinity for jargon and making things more complicated than they ought to be. But I’m intrigued by Mark’s vision, and I’d love to see how the rebranding pans out for the company.”
But for every yin, there’s a yang. And so, with every fan comes a critic. The rebranding effort also invited a bunch of skeptics who weren’t pleased with the rebranding. Felix Thorne, a veteran marketer, opined, “I don’t really see the logic behind this in-your-face strategy. Don’t fix what ain’t broken. There’s a reason why marketing has been so cryptic with its messaging. It’s the easiest way to get the buyers’ attention. I’ve always believed in the motto: ‘Mysteria attracts hysteria.’”
Felix further said, “Also, I don’t get this hoopla around this relaunch. People are already considering it the case study of the decade. You call it a genius move, I call it bs. The company has dumbed down the product for its buyers. Nothing more. I’d be curious to see how long Todo-whatever-its-called is forced to go back to its previous messaging. The clarity, transparency trend is all nonsense.”
It’s been a week and SaaS marketing Slack channels and Discord servers are still abuzz with Todofella’s rebranding campaign. And while the company has managed to rile up and divide the SaaS marketing community, everyone still seems nonchalant and oblivious to what the end user wants.
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