Research in advertising shows that the more messages you try to communicate, the less your chances of landing ANY single message. So the temptation marketers have for adding secondary (and thirdly, fourthly…) messaging into ads is actually lowering the effectiveness of the main message they were trying to get across in the first place. It might be a well-worn phrase, but the fact remains, less really is more.
That’s the scientific part. Hooray for certainty!
Once you’ve distilled that single key message, ads need to work hard and smart to deliver that message in a creative and engaging way. Keep in mind that people really don’t care about brands and advertising. So you have to work with them (show don’t tell), not against them.
The bad news is that there is no exact science or magic formula from here on, just the application of creative thinking and hard graft. You may be disappointed to hear that. You might be tempted instead by those agencies that talk about their 3/5/10/whatever-step process for great work. They’ve probably even given it an oh-so-clever acronym.
But there’s only one acronym you need to remember – KISS.
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