Lets Lose Weight!

We live in a over communicated age, where we are force fed information left, right and centre, and as noted in the book 'Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind' the human mind can only take up to 7 units of information a day!

This is why modern advertising screams out simplicity, for with this ideal it would not have the power to sell and thus blend into the average dull bullshit you see everyday, and so its a consistent battle in the mind of the consumer to stand out with a clear single benefit, that would make them remember thus care about the purpose of the product/service and eventually buy it!

So the simple ideal of a single benefit is the 1st stage, then comes the element of idea generation followed with simplistic construction, and the key aspect of this methodologically that stands out to me and is the core aspect of interest in this post is the art of 'Reductionism'.

What is 'Reductionism' you say? Well as described clearly on page 77 of a good book on the basics of the advertising titled 'The Advertising Concept Book' Pete the author explains that its the practice of reducing the elements of a ad as far as possible, but to the point where the communication still works. The maximum number of elements being six (headline, subhead, visual, body copy, tagline and logo), and the chances are you will not need them all, depending on the strategy/idea you have set yourself, speaking generally to the heart of 'Less is More'.

Here is a clear example of it at work on page 83 of 'Hey Whipple, Squeeze This!' -

'Luke Sullivan' takes account on this explaining that if you add to a layout it reduces the importance of all the other elements, and so the opposite if you subtract, it raises the visibility and importance of what's left, thus the effectiveness relying on what is set in the strategy/idea! BUT straight to the point of this post, the reason I highlight this awesome method of development on the back drop of our over communicated society, is that it helps clear the fog and makes things easier to remember for the consumer thus a vital weapon in the battle of the mind. So by reducing what is not needed you are adding strength or as I like to put it selling power into the single benefit you have set, making it jump out more thus being far more memorable! but remember you have to find a perfect balance for your idea/strategy to shine without losing the message!

Therefore before I go to Berlin for couple of days I would like to leave you with this cool example that fits perfectly with what I have been saying throughout this post, I found it on one of my sources of inspiration 'Adweek' which as the article puts it 'a pretty expensive way to say (almost) nothing' covering two consecutive pages in The New York Times -

But hey just imagine how much information you get in a newspaper, and then suddenly BOOM! this appears, defiantly would catch your attention wouldn't it! So anyway its late I need to sleep ready for tomorrow's very early/long ass coach journey, so if you want further information on this example here is the link to the article on Adweek (CLICK FOR MORE INFOOO) ok PEACE OUT!