• Ad Age, Monday, April 2, 2007 12:15 PM

Attempts to battle advertising clutter are resulting in a counterproductive result: more clutter. This bitter irony is bound to have dire consequences for a business already struggling with questions of relevance and effectiveness.

The clichéd mission statement of "cutting through the clutter" has really yielded an industry that shotgun blasts commercial messages into sexy new places as quick as it can identify them, from emerging digital platforms to dry-cleaning bags. And TV commercial pods are fatter than they've ever been.

One reason why there isn't a clear, unified way of figuring out how to reduce clutter is that it's usually viewed through the lenses of individual media. Those lenses need to be refocused not on media but on the consumer, who's cumulatively bludgeoned by commercial messages as he moves from medium to medium.

The stakes are particularly high for the rapidly growing internet ad economy. This summer, Starcom will release a major study finding that the more ads on a page, the more click-through rates, brand impact and product consideration decline.

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