Ever hear the one about those nerdy marketing whiz kids over at Hewlett-Packard? It goes something like: If HP was going to sell sushi they’d do it with a 200-page technical manual and call the product “Raw Fish.”

A lot of engineering-driven tech companies fall into this trap, failing to translate the wonders of tech innovation into language that is not only understandable but has enough style to inspire consumers to embrace a product and build brand allegiance.

A glaring current example of too much tech is the ongoing fits and starts of the campaign to move consumers to high-definition television, or HDTV.

Marketers from broadcast, cable, device and retail players have hyped the living daylights out of HDTV. But they’ve done so largely in tech speak with little to no consumer education or support.

The result? A building consumer backlash that threatens to seriously curtail the adoption of the very technology theses companies seek to promote. Amazingly, consumers who have plunked down top-dollar for high-definition systems and the premium services that go with them are watching… the same low-quality analog images they would have with much cheaper old-school TV sets.

According to a survey by Leichtman Research Group, half of the 24 million people who own HDTVs aren’t watching high-definition programs because they don’t have the right kind of hardware hooked up by their cable or other program suppliers. And half of those people, about 6 million, don’t even know they’re NOT watching HDTV.

Call it the Great HDTV Hoax. HDTVs are the antithesis of simple plug and play electronics products like the iPod -- just too complicated to set up and operate for Joe and Jane Consumer. It’s a throwback to the flashing 12:00 time display on yesterday’s impossible to program VCRs. Only this time it’s costing consumers a lot more to not take full advantage of what they’re paying for.

As has often been the case with advanced technology, the more sophisticated the functionality, the less user-friendly a product becomes. Some would say it’s innovation and R&D run amuck, overshooting the needs and abilities of consumers. Check out The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton Christensen for more on the concept of technology performance oversupply and the consequences for both business and tech-consuming customers.

All this of course spells opportunity for communications. The more complicated and pervasive technology becomes, the more technology needs smart consumer comms. Just try navigating the vagaries of 3G cell networks, AC-3 digital stereo or 1080i high-def.

In fact, the more complicated technology becomes, the more simple and straight ahead communication should be. From ads to press releases, every object of dialogue can help to demystify, educate and empower the consumer. And at the very least avoid turning off consumers to the point that they don’t purchase or return products they can’t understand, feeling frustrated and burned like so many would-be HDTV customers.

That means thinking when, if ever, to use hard-core tech terms -- does a consumer ever really need to know that “Standard NTSC (ITU-R 601) digital video has rectangular pixels and a standardized aspect ratio of...”?

It’s the old PR adage of describing tech by virtue of its consumer benefits (movie theater style sound) rather than its tech features (5.1 surround sound). It’s up to PR and marketing to push back on the engineers and find a better way to market products beyond early adopters on the bell curve.

But in this era of reference-, buzz-based communication, the opportunity lies well beyond sell sheets and press releases. Consumer education needs to happen organically, on and offline with the friends, family and peers that influence purchase decisions and brand buzz.

Here are three rules for all of us to live by:

1) Speak the Language of Digital Consumers…
Talk real-world benefits, not geek-based speeds and feeds.

2) In the Places Where They Live…
Replace websites and marketing collateral with friends and family brand ambassadors who can drive organic, reference-based WOM.

3) Early and Often.
Build advocacy while technology is nascent, communicating basics and benefits on and offline. Correcting course once you hit backlash mode, a la HDTV, requires all your resources just to get back to neutral if you’re lucky; meanwhile the market has likely moved on.

And when all else fails, always think sushi.