Cutting Through Marketing Clutter

Many companies run into marketing set backs trying to reach their target audience by having to cut through advertising clutter that consumers most customers. This paper will address that issue by looking at markers can better reach their target audience and one example of a demographic, the youth of today, and how to market to them. The paper will conclude with an opinion on why by cutting through the noise of advertising, marketers will have more success reaching their target audience.

The text says that "a typical consumer is exposed to more than 2500 advertising messages a day but notices only between 11 and 20," with all of that "noise" it is hard for a marketer to capture the attention of the audience he is trying to reach. As Steve Strauss from USA Today suggests, "The secret, from an advertiser's point of view, is to do something unexpected, to market or advertise in an unusual way or unique place so you are heard above the din and become memorable" . It is easy for advertisers to do something that everyone else is doing as to not have to "reinvent the wheel" but that is when they run into the problem are blending in with all the other advertisements that consumers are bombarded with on a daily basis. Most advertising before was done on television, or the radio before that, but "since people are spending more time away from home, marketers are spending more money on bringing TV to you: in shopping malls and in grocery stores. There's even an Autonet in auto repair shops, and of course, advertising reaches people on computers and movie screens" which is making it easier for more companies to reach more of their audience no matter where they may be.

"In this environment, consumers have little choice but to ignore those marketing messages that are deemed to be irrelevant and unlikely to lead to a beneficial experience. Instead of blanketing customers with a barrage of generic marketing messages that are almost certain to be ignored, financial institutions must focus on tailoring their communications. This focus must include a customer communication solution that sends targeted and personalized messages that pique and keep the customer's interest."

Before a company can effectively cut through the noise of advertisement though, it must first understand why it is so hard to break through all of the messages consumers see everyday. Shaun Crowley writes that "cognitive research tells us that subconsciously, our brains are aware of everything around us all of the time. This means that as we wade in this vast ocean of icons, our subconscious must decide which of the messages deserves our attention and which don't. The theory of the subconscious's role in encoding advertising messages has paved the way for a rebirth in Jungian archetypal theory: If we subconsciously filter out external messages and images, then advertising must talk to the subconscious to retain its impact."

Consumers today have become desensitized to all that is going on around them and fail to notice the small and seemingly unimportant messages that a company is may be trying to portray. Crowley goes on to say that "For consumer advertising to remain effective, it must be informed by an understanding of the deeper, unarticulated, subconscious needs of its target audience. These needs are what Jung refers to as archetypes" Advertising must reach a deep-seated need in a person to be truly effective. When watching TV. often times the commercials are geared towards the audience of that particular show. During a sporting event for example, a company will most likely not play commercials for products that meet the needs of women because the stereotypical audience during most sporting events is men. Crowley suggests that "Advertising that reaches out to an archetypal need is often the most persuasive type of advertising, whether you're selling calculators to bankers or toilet tissue to homemakers. As a designer, you need to know which archetype your client's product relates to, and subtly integrate that knowledge into your design approach" The better the ad is geared towards the actual needs of the audience, the better chance it has of breaking through the noise of the other advertisements being played.

One way to express an archetypal need is through images. Crowley says that" Images are more effective at communicating unconscious feelings than words because we can't always articulate or recognize archetypal feelings through language. Language is a surface-level communication tool bound by conscious thought; images often go deeper to engage fears and emotions people may be too embarrassed to admit to, or may not even aware of. That's why an ad's visual is extremely important. Images don't merely grab attention -- they offer the subconscious a bridge