School Starts

I teach two classes at Chaminade University and yesterday was the first day of class for the Spring 2009 session. My students may or may not venture onto this blog, so I’m going to take this opportunity to juice them up and say that they are the best, most intelligent group of kids that I have taught so far.

Okay enough of that.

When I was in college, we learned a statistic that the average person sees 3,000 messages per day. That was a huge number.

It was also before the Internet and the cable TV explosion and the invasion of megaplex theaters.

I estimate that now the average person sees upwards of 10,000 messages per day. This includes logo on clothing (remember when the alligator was the big only clothing logo?), TV commercials, the Internet, shop logos, radio advertising, etc.

That’s a lot.

Last night I reflected on the messages I saw and retained throughout the day. Of the thousands of logos, commercials, etc. that I saw yesterday, only a few stood out:

• A Star of David necklace one of my students wore
• A commercial for a product that will enhance the size of a man’s penis
• Followed quickly by an ad for Viagra (you can’t make this stuff up!)
• An ad for Mr. Slim air conditioning

Um. That’s it. I know there was more. I’m positive there was more. But nothing is coming to me. A full 10,000 images and messages and I can remember just four things.

Either my memory is bad, or advertisers just aren’t breaking through the clutter to make a lasting impression on me.

And this is the lesson I teach my clients.

Our actions need to be memorable. We need to break through the clutter. It’s the only way we can hope that our product or service will be bought.

So what can you do to be memorable?

Let’s cover that in tomorrow’s blog.