So you’re at the grocery store in the beverage aisle having the seemingly most important debate of your life: Which drinks do I get for my party? You know there will be 30 or so people there and you want to satisfy them all. Do you get every flavor of juice and cola drink that’s been made since 1935 and try to please everyone with impromptu mixology? Or do you stick to a basic four or five core drinks and hope everyone likes them? Decisions, decisions.
It seems that brands today have already made their decision on this front—trying to do and produce everything in order to reach and please everyone. The real question now arising is: Is it all becoming a bit too much?
I think it’s safe to say that consumers today have an overwhelmingly vast choice of products and brands in their lives every day. Which candy bar, which sneaker, which computer, which vodka, which pain reliever, which condom, which coconut water? And it doesn’t seem like the market is slowing down any time soon.
So then we arrive at the question: Is it possible to have too much choice? Maybe the flooded market is actually drowning us instead.
An average person may see about 5,000 ads per day—that’s nearly one ad every 17.28 seconds. There are not many things I do every 17 seconds other than blink, maybe—and if I do that, I just might miss the newest, funniest, (or intrusive) advertisement on my screen right then.
In a world where thousands of brands are clawing at our eyes for a mere glimpse of attention, they need a differentiator to help them stand out, and fast. (Seventeen seconds fast, if we’re being scientific). Advertisements have become redundant, and strategy cliché and repetitive—it’s time brands reevaluate the market and their consumers to find their niche in the promotional world.
And don’t blink—because you just might miss it.
Molly Schlinger is a strategic planner at TRCo Marketing.
