Less is more!

If I threw 5 tennis balls at you how many would you catch?

If you're anything like me, you'd drop them all, but I guess the more agile amongst you might catch one but certainly not all 5!

However if I threw a single tennis ball, you're much more likely to catch it!

The same principle applies to advertising, if you have 5 different messages you're trying to get across in your advertisement, chances are your audience won't take in any of them.  If your advertisement is too busy, if there's too much information to wade through, take it from me, your reader won't read it.  Looking at the press advertising this week in our local paper, I am mortified by the number of advertisers who will have spent a lot of money on their precious advertising space, only to fill that space to the gunnels with headlines, offers, deals, long paragraphs of text, not to mention beautiful photographs which just don't reproduce well in black and white! 

When you're placing an advertisement, think about the environment in which it will appear, chances are you'll be surrounded by similar busy, content filled advertisements all jostling for readers attention.

My advice is to stand out from the crowd, stop the reader in their tracks, remember one word 'KISS', Keep It Simple Stupid!

Stick to one tennis ball!  In other words, one clear message and execute that message clearly and succinctly.  You have a very limited chance to grab and hold your readers attention so make sure they get your message within a few precious seconds before they're on to the next page, offer, deal.

Less is most definitely more.