The large print giveth and the small print taketh away. Consumers rarely read the small print. That’s partly because so much of it is written in legalese that is not easily understood. Who honestly reads the lengthy “terms of use” disclaimers we have to accept before using a mobile app or the iTunes clickthrough agreement?
Yet even legal disclaimers are part of the brand experience. Instagram learned this the hard way recently when they became front page news for updating their terms of use to have more control over the pictures of their community. The convoluted legalese only made the situation worse.
Tech companies are some of the biggest offenders of confusing legal disclaimers, with constant policy changes that their audiences can’t easily understand. I stumbled across a funny post that tries to decode Facebook’s legalese by translating “The Entire Facebook Terms Of Service in Bro Speak“.
Techcrunch posted an interesting article on this phenomenon, “Tech Companies, You’re Killing Yourself With Scary Legalese“.
“You always fear what you don’t understand. Tech companies need to wise up and end the cycle of pushing policy updates in confusing legal terms, watching press and users alike panic and threaten to jump ship, and then issuing an apology and clarification. The fact is that the outcry is always louder than the apology. People don’t get the memo, and you lose users or at least trust.”
In a funny story around the same time as Instagram, even Randi Zuckerberg (Mark’s sister) was confused by Facebook’s convoluted privacy policy and accidentally shared a private picture that went viral.
The lessons are relevant to any marketers, tech or not. Lawyers are not always considered part of the marketing team. But the brand voice extends to the small print as well as the large print. Brands today are judged by both.
(Marketoonist Monday: I’m giving away one signed print of this week’s cartoon. Just share an insightful comment to this week’s post by 5:00 PST on Monday. I’ll pick one comment. Thanks!)