Understanding the new language of the Vivid brand…with memes.

In the past, there was one big problem in the way we communicated with our audience—we weren’t speaking one language.

Vivid Learning Systems sounded like a tech company that sold instructional design and educational materials to human resource professionals, mostly in the style of a used car salesperson:

“Best-in-class” “Best-of-breed” “Turn-key solutions” “High-performance” “Partnered solutions” “Enterprise-wide” “Off-the-shelf” “Robust” “eLearning”

Let’s use these words and phrases in a different context…

“Now, my best-in-class Toyota Tacoma is a high-performance machine, truly the entire package.”

“This best-of-breed Thanksgiving turkey will provide a robust meal for my guests, who are accustomed to off-the-shelf, frozen turkey dinners.”

It was as if the ratio of hyphens used in copy correlated directly with sales (it does not).

Why is it important to share a common language? Language matters because details matter to our client, and it is worth our while to invest in engaging the audience. Here’s the rationale: client experience drives loyalty, so there’s value in creating a better client experience, in maximizing the opportunity to connect with the audience.

Why these changes? Understanding Vivid should be easy for our audience. Our audience of safety and training professionals doesn’t have time for obfuscating mumbo jumbo and likely doesn’t appreciate it. We’re not dealing with neophytes in high-risk industry or safety training, and even if we are, talking straight is the true, thoughtful approach.

People respond to authenticity, not business jargon. Being simple and direct are virtues all consumers appreciate. They want to deal with a brand they can trust, with companies that clearly align with their values, and seem to care more about what they’re doing. What we say is both an expression of how we see our audience and ourselves.

Remember, we don’t need to say everything. Because we have great software, the best content in the industry, and a smart sales team that sells both, we don’t have to pack our copy with tired descriptive phrases. We just need to be ‘gettable’ and attractive, leaving a memorable 1st impression of warmth and wisdom.

Instructor-Led Training | Live Training

It’s just easier. Rather than three words and one hyphen, with “live training” you have two words that say the same thing, essentially. Context is important here, but, again, we really don’t need to say everything. It is okay to let the audience make this easy connection in meaning, instead of qualifying the reference for what most recognize as a traditional training experience anyway. If anything, the change to ‘live training’ assumes a higher level of intelligence in your audience, because you assume they can make the connection.

We’re positioning ourselves as an alternative to instructor-led training because, stereotypically speaking, that’s a boring experience for the workforce, thanks to the ‘death by powerpoint’ phenomenon, old videos and DVDs, and lack of engagement by high-paid consultants. So, if there’s ever a question from the audience about your explicit meaning when using the phrase ‘live training’, that’s a great opportunity to demonstrate knowledge and hold the Vivid online training experience out as distinct.

Live training is expensive, requiring companies to pull workers off of the job for a training experience that kills productivity. A day of live training in a class or conference room is a day where employees aren’t doing the jobs they’re paid to be doing.

eLearning | Online Training

No, it isn’t Spanish for learning. In fact, “eLearning” is not a real word at all, and it creates confusion about what we do here at Vivid.

People learn from our training, but learning isn’t what we sell and it isn’t why clients come to us. Learning is for students, training is for the workforce. We are not in the learning business.

What do we sell the most of? Safety training required by the federal government. Who is our target buyer? Someone who needs that stuff. Look, there is no “mandatory learning” required by OSHA. Trying to connect with an audience that needs and wants safety training by using the language of instructional design, doesn’t work.

Working back through old whitepapers that remain available for download (but have since been revised), there were frequent references to “the growth in eLearning sales” in places like China:

“We are well past a transformative period for eLearning, worldwide. eLearning is the standard now. This paradigm change is being driven in part by education policies. For example, the Chinese government’s goal is to have its entire K-12 population of more than 200 million students online by 2020. By 2015, more than 17.3 million U.S. students will take at least one online course.”

Does any of that sound like our business? No. That’s a disingenuous use of data.

Off-The-Shelf | On Demand

Maybe our clients buy macaroni & cheese off-of-the-shelf, but safety training systems? And for hundreds of thousands of dollars, in some instances?

“Off-The-Shelf” is old and sounds cheap. Sometimes it’s that simple.

While we used to have a library of DVDs that likely found their way to the shelves of our clients, Vivid products are premium, and “on demand” is the new language that best describes instantly accessible media consumed on the web. And for us, that phrasing actually isn’t new. The phrase “on demand” appears in old Vivid whitepapers and sales slicks, and so shouldn’t be unfamiliar.

eClarus & Sum Total/eClarus Enterprise | Nothing

We’re going with nothing.

Of course there’s pride in the success and development of eClarus, and we look forward to sharing new training system features with our audience. eClarus is something we built and we own, and that’s something worth sharing with clients; the notion of software developed here at home, from scratch, inspires trust and signals expertise.

But what do these names mean for new clients? Probably as much as “Cool Ranch Flavor” means to you—it’s just your favorite Dorito, another name for a product/service we provide, with little significance externally. There’s so much wrong with “Vivid Learning Systems’ eClarus Learning Management System”.

With clients, we will certainly be talking about eClarus or SumTotal from time to time, but we should begin phasing them out because we will no longer be marketing these names. It is easy to reference these systems by saying “software”, “training systems”, or “the system”, instead.

Learning Management Systems | Safety Training Systems

Because learning isn’t what we sell, it isn’t what our systems manage. If you’re running a safety training program and you need a better resource, are you buying a Learning Management System or a Safety Training System? Will you hear, “Safety Training System…is that like an LMS?” Probably. And there’s the opportunity to explain the differences of our software from whatever our competitors have and from HRIS systems.

Clients will continue to say “LMS” because that is how we’ve trained them to reference our product., and when they do say LMS, you certainly shouldn’t correct them—what would be the point of that? But we can train clients to use “Safety Training Systems” too, by referencing our products that way. Saying ‘training systems’ or ‘software’, for brevity or for avoiding repetition, is acceptable. When talking to a human resources audience member, for example, you could just say, “Vivid’s workforce training systems are...” When talking to a safety professional, “Safety Training Systems” is the correct reference.

Users and Students | Workers or Employees

Users use drugs. Students learn things in classrooms, from teachers. No HR person is responsible for making sure students are learning, just as no teacher is responsible for worker safety performance. For the high-risk audience, “workers” is the best fit. For the human resources audience, “employees” is the better fit. But, generally, these words are interchangeable.

Workers and employees take Vivid training online. When Vivid starts selling math courses online to the K-12 system, we can revisit this discussion.

Compliance | Balance

“Compliance” will always come up. There’s really no other word that expresses the same meaning so accurately. But our products do so much more than facilitate mere compliance, and that’s really a fundamental premise behind our value—we don’t want to undermine that. This is a key part of our strategy for differentiation, encouraging the client to go beyond compliance. As safety professionals, we want to lead the conversation in our space and that involves working to change the conversation from compliance focus to going beyond and improving safety culture. By definition, “compliance” is the least we can do, and it is a term that brings to mind lowest cost considerations.

When safety training programs are out of “balance” with regulatory standards, or fail to appropriately address new OSHA requirements, accidents may happen. We can help our clients find “balance” with federal and state industry regulations, or deliver a custom training experience for “balanced” orientation training. Vivid safety training can restore “balance” with training programs after an audit, etc.

The concept of balance implicitly connotes compliance. Being out of compliance is not that different from being out of balance, and half of each word is identical, so they sound the same (compliance v. balance). “Compliance” is a loaded, negative term—try not to use it.

Safety | SafetyVivid is not some company pimping low quality OSHA safety training at low prices, just to help a business fake a concern for safety to meet compliance. We’re a genuine company serving genuine people, not advancing some scheme to create the appearance of safety.

We’re better than that.

Because workers have an effective training experience with Vivid, they actually learn critical basic safety concepts—that’s the whole point of mandatory safety training. Checking the boxes or going through the motions of safety training isn’t what we’re about.

The concept of safety is the beginning or end to all of our client conversations—don’t forget to mention it.

Knowledge. Performance. Results | We get it.New tagline. This claim is versatile, confident in tone, and instructive on several levels. It implies our top, collective character attribute—knowledge—but also understanding, of clients, products, the general industry. It’s both reassuring and memorable, novel in the sense that it takes a common phrase and elevates it. It is easily repeatable, fresh, and distinct.

“We get it…” also prompts the question, “What does Vivid understand that other companies don’t?” That’s the window of opportunity to explain key differentiators, but here’s one easy reply: “We get it so you don’t have to.” Because we are a focused company selling simplicity for our client, and that’s attractive. This is an appealing level of candor. “We get it”, is broadly applicable. We get that our clients want exceptional service. We get results that positively impact the bottom line. We get that our client’s time is valuable. Etc…

CloseAre we worried that with a lot of new terminology, there will be a loss of comprehension with familiar clients? No. Here’s why.

We’ve launched the new brand and communicated that major shift to clients, so with our close relationships there is already the expectation of change. Plus, we’re being more direct, which aligns with our core characteristics as a company, and gets us a little closer to our client demographic/buyer personae.

The whole idea behind branding is to create attractive distinction in the marketplace, being different in a way that connects with our core audience. So having new language is natural. If clients have questions, that’s awesome. That’s the opportunity to demonstrate knowledge or connect with sales, to be transparent in sharing demos, etc.

What’s the Shared Responsibility Doctrine? I just made it up, but it’s rooted in common sense. The idea is that we all have responsibility for the Vivid brand language—if you see an error, please let somebody know. We want to get it right. While most of our whitepapers and sales slicks have been revised to include the new language, you may notice errors of omission, typos, and grammatical mistakes. Or, maybe a technical description is inaccurate.

Let someone know about that stuff before sharing with clients, please.

Thanks.