When a message connects with you deeply, it's more than just the words. It's how those words are presented (type, weight, color, etc.). It's how the visual amplifies the message and maybe even a secondary meaning of the message. It's the design that balances it all, emphasizing the elements that need emphasizing. Understanding when to fill a space and when to leave it alone.

Today's amazing resources

We all have access to some amazing tools that democratize the ability to create. We can build a layout or select a template to customize. We can choose fonts, specifying their weights and sizes. We can play with color. We can search collections of photos, graphics, animation, and video and add them to our creation. We can do all these things. And often for free.

On top of it all, there are exponentially more places to display an ad today than when I first started in this business. So with all of this available to us, why is there such a dearth of awesome messages/ads?

A trip down memory lane

Back in the day (80 or so years ago), ads followed a fairly standard formula. Find some words to describe some feature of your product you'd like to highlight. Then throw in a smiling person (look, they like our product!) and a logo.

When I joined the ad industry in the 1980s, it was during a bit of a golden era. Ads were smart. Thoughtfully concepted, written, and designed. And it wasn't just sportswear manufacturers and beer companies. I created some of my most moving ideas in some unlikely categories (financial services and crop protection just to name a couple).

Speed kills

When we all went digital, it was an exciting time because of all the possibilities. Not only for new tools and channels but also the speed that we could now build our messages.

But we didn't anticipate the fallout. All that speed made it way too easy to create an execution without the foundation of an idea (or concept as we used to say).

Today, we see the result. A lot of uninspiring language. Visuals that do little more than just add eye candy – usually innocuous smiling people. Kind of reminds me of those ads from 80 years ago.

Worse yet, it just adds more noise and clutter to our lives. And it comes at a time when we all are inundated more than ever with information. We simply don't need more uninteresting things to wade through.

Getting back to the brand message concept

All of this creates a pretty compelling argument for developing a concept for your brand messaging. When you establish a concept, you create a multitude of advantages.

• You strengthen your communication since all elements are amplifying your idea.

• Visuals are more powerful since they are capturing an idea and not just decorating the page.

• Your ad is more memorable since an interesting concept boosts recall.

• Your effort doesn't wear out as quickly – again, because it's interesting.

• Your ad can extend further across the customer journey (reaching more prospects) since you're engaging people in a way that appeals to them no matter where they are in the journey.

Imagine your ad doing all of that. It's not hard to get there. It starts with recognizing the value of developing a concept before you start shuffling pixels around. Give yourself the time to develop an interesting and compelling concept around your brand. Then watch what it can turn into.