• by Cory Treffiletti , Featured Contributor, March 23, 2005

As always, Time magazine runs a column called "Numbers" in which random statistics are thrown out based on some relevancy to newsworthy items from the past week. I typically look at these snippets of information as directional signs for popular culture, and as a result this is a sign of where advertising should be headed. This week there were numbers I felt were very interesting and worthy of noting.

1. The average U.S. child is exposed to 8 hrs. and 33 min. of media per day (increased from 2000).

2. The average U.S. child spends 1 hr. and 2 min. each day on the computer, not counting homework (also increased from 2000).

3. The perfect score on the SAT is now 2400, whereas it used to be 1600, now that they've added an essay section.

Why am I bringing this up and what does this mean?

First of all, this provides some explanation and support for the issue of increasing clutter in the media landscape. As kids spend more time being exposed to media, and then continue to be exposed in a more subconscious fashion to other marketing messages throughout the day, we continue to create a situation in which we immunize the consumer. They are effectively becoming deaf to our messaging.

Second of all, this provides proof that the children of today are shifting their focus towards digital and interactive media. In the old days when a kid did something wrong the punishment was, "No TV tonight." I wonder if in today's world the punishment for a child's bad judgment is "No Instant Messenger or Internet for you tonight."

The third point I wanted to bring up is that the addition of the essay to the SATs, compounded by the issue of clutter and the growing sophistication of the consumer as they move towards interactive media and away from passive media, is that the consumer is becoming smarter and more adept at processing data. The consumer is able to process information differently, and in many ways faster, than ever before. As a result, our advertising needs to be elevated to speak to them in a constructive manner.

All signs seem to point to a smarter consumer; however I also find contradictory elements in popular culture that make me think twice, but that I think can still apply to this hypothesis. What would first seem contradictory can be explained through different theories.

The biggest element to this is the increasing role of low-brow humor such as "South Park," "Scary Movie," Adam Sandler, Howard Stern, and other entertainment. These forms of entertainment seem to suggest that in our passive media consumption periods we're looking for even less mental activity than before while in our more aggressive, lean forward, consumptions of media we're becoming more sophisticated and intelligent. Is it possible that our increasing attention to interactive forms of media -- where we ask for the content and create a dialogue -- are more mentally draining? Does this mean that our entertainment needs to be less draining in order for our minds to recover?

It's a theory, but the reason I ask might be to explain some of what we are seeing in advertising today. Many of the ads we see, such as the Super Bowl ad where the appearance of slaughtering a cat made the audience laugh, are attempts to meet a need for lower intelligence to entertain the consumer and stand out amongst the clutter. Conversely, it might be true that we should actually assume that our ads should be more intelligent to create a dialogue and speak to consumers in a more sophisticated manner, and therefore assume the role of the stronger media forms that are increasingly being used to fill their time.

What do you think? Is our consumer becoming smarter or more basic, and what is the implication for advertising?