In a world where 'information overload" is substantial, product choices are immense, and information accessible, ad repetitions have become less effective. We have, in effect, trained the buying public to tune out the incessant noise of ads. This has led to the current problem, which is, breaking through to the Customer and gaining a measure of awareness in a crowded and noisy marketplace.

We have fallen prey to our own success. 80 to 95% of all US households has one or more a televisions, one or more VCRs and there are five times the number of radios than their are households. (All figures came from the DOE database the NAB website.) This is the environment where 52% of American households have introduced one or more computers that are connected to the Internet. Even without adding in the 1-3 telephones, it is a crowded, noisy, multiple media environment.

The solution is not simply a matter of turning up the volume or increasing the number of repetitions or expanding the reach. As a group, Marketers have tried each of those strategies. From the high level of noise it would appear that we continue to employ these tactics despite their decreasing effectiveness. And a number of recent studies indicate that fact.

One of the major reasons for the decreased effectiveness should be obvious. A high percentage of people no longer use media one at a time. It is not unusual for one of my daughters to be talking on the phone, searching on the Internet, the newspaper open and watching television all at the same time. On occasion she has two phones going, her land-line and her cell phone.

It is appropriate to ask how much time or attention she gives any commercial message regardless of design or content? How can anything get through?

Considering each of these media all going at once, it is no wonder why direct phone sales had gained in usage. It provided an interruption, a pause to answer, and a human being to pose the selling proposition. It became so invasive that we now have a National No-Call Registry and legislated penalties for making unwanted calls.

Passing that legislation should come as a wake-up call to advertising and marketing. The buying public has begun to push-back, to distance the commercial messages. And the push-back is obvious in the growth of spam-filters and the growth and popularity of the Personal Video Recorder - the TiVo-like device many use to skip the ads.

The PVR has other implications for marketing. TiVo marks a significant shift in power from the broadcast network and cable management, to the consumer. It is not clear if there is a connection between the control Digital Customers enjoy on Internet and a desire to control the time and content while watching TV, but they have earmarks that look very similar.

In both cases, the Customer has taken control of product selection and the sales cycle in a very overt and individualistic way. Both the selection of the content and the time of purchase or viewing have obvious appeal. Interestingly, NetRatings often compares the time spent on-line against the time spent viewing. The two seem to be opposing and competing media. I have yet to see any figures from PVR households but it is probably too early in the cycle to have figures for PVRs to be singled out in the surveys.

Clearly the challenge for today's Marketing and Advertising executives revolves around gaining the attention of the prospect or customer. This is particularly true for consumer products. B to B sales do not have the congestion of the multiple media household to contend with, but they do have the pressures of the office environment and office-based media.

Are we reaching a point of saturation where an increase in repetitions has little effect, no effect or worse a negative effect? From many signals given by the buying public you might think so.

We are going to have to become even more creative if we want to reach buyers while gaining the attention of the customer is becoming a rare and perhaps vanishing commodity.