If you stop to take a moment and look at the myriad of consumer content out there, from social networking sites to photo sharing, online video and others, you can begin to boil it down to some pretty basic fundamentals that we, as marketers, can learn from. Consumers want to be part of a bigger community. They want to be informed [with information relevant to them] and entertained. Not interrupted.
Somewhere along the way, marketers realized that if they couldn’t reach a mass audience on TV they could reach them through other methods in their daily lives, be it coffee shop or beauty parlor. The result? ‘Cut through the clutter’ has not only become one of the most over-used phrases today, it has also become somewhat of an oxymoron. As you begin to brainstorm those great creative ideas think to yourself: Are you engaging the consumer in a natural and organic way? Or forcing yourself into their lives? Are you just adding to the clutter?