How do you rise above the daily ruckus, not just the static coming from other advertisers, but the clamorous information explosion we're all living in?

Nature understands that in a jumbled world, you should find a way to get yourself into clear space if you're going to converse successfully. The question is: how do you get your advertising into clear space?

Un-clutter, if you want to be found in a muddled world, be ruthlessly simple. Simplicity is one of the main foolproof advertising practices. Advertising is communication, and if the right person does not really take notice of your advertising, having heard, does not undoubtedly understand what you are saying, then you've failed.

Put simply, we're living in the over-information age; this means the more information you put into your advertising, the less people will take out. Simplicity exists to reduce the Crime of Add-vertising. Remember, even though it's called an ?ad,? the most efficient way to converse a message is actually to take away less important information.

All great messages are strongly simple. The enduring philosophical tool, Ockham's Razor, states that when there are two accurate answers which solve a problem equally will, the more accurate answer is the simpler one. Work for a compression of a influential idea into a hard nut core ? a profound simplicity; a haiku ? like intensity.

But, being simple is not an easy job. The art, of course, is not how short you make it. But rather, how to make it short. It is much easier to be complex than to be simple. Simplicity is one of the most definite characteristics in advertising and may be one of the most forgotten.

This could be due to the fact that the ?simple? has a double personality: What is simple may have a genius synthesis or simply a primary obviousness. To be simple call for much more self-confidence than to be complex. The simple may be discomforting.

After all, each of us would like to be seen as a person with developed thoughts. Complexity of rationale may be easily baffled with intelligence by the incautious. Yet, the simple is only developed, only valued, when it is discovered before it becomes obvious.

Until it is revealed, is somewhere, close by, but very well disguised. It is necessary for someone to think about it first, to discover it first so that someone else could then say, ?Wow, why didn't I think of that before??

Only after this statement, repeated by lots of people, is a simple idea transformed into something obvious. I imagine that it must have been something like this with the wheel, the paper clip, the headline ?Think small? for VW or the picture of a piece of purple cut silk for the cigarette silk Cut. Whoever discovers the obvious first becomes a genius, and those who only repeat it remain mediocre.

Being simple is also leaving an objective and trying to attain it with least amount of resources, getting there by the shortest energy in this search, everything that does not to simplicity, its purity, must be taken away.

Being simple is corresponding a new idea using the least possible number of elements, creating something so strong and powerful in its simplicity that it ends up generating a fabulous reaction in whoever is exposed to it, what is a simple moves person.

Advertising is communication. The effect of advertising is measured not by what is said, but by what people recognize. A campaign starts to work when whatever is being sold ? it may be an institutional message, a promotional price, or a new automobile ? is noticed by those who are exposed to it.

But simply understanding that there is a new automobile in the market is not sufficient. It is necessary to notice what makes this car different from the others, why it is better. But even this is not enough. It is necessary for this difference to be truly pertinent for those who are looking for a automobile.

Is it really simple? To know this you just have to respond to two questions: ?What am I going to say about this product?? And ?Is what I am going to say, in fact what is going to stimulate people?? The answers to these two questions are the most crucial part of the creative process for any campaign, TV film or press ad.

Being simple is also being objective before creating. A European country, such as England, for instance, is used to a level of complexity directly associated to its capacity of observation of more elaborate messages. In countries such as Brazil, young and still under development, this capacity is much smaller, being simple and objective is not an option; it is a necessity.

In Brazil, the benefit of a product must be communicated in an understandable, straightforward manner so that it may be completely understood by the greatest number of people.

Yet, being simple is not sufficient. One must be simple and surprising.

This is might be one of the keys to Brazilian advertising: simple without being simple-minded; objective, yet creating an impact at the same time; popular without being mediocre. Advertisements such as Guarana Antrctica, with a minimum of elements, communicate the synthesis of a benefit: No calories, no belly. Winning the print media Grand prix at the 1993 Cannes festival, the ad opened a path that has been followed by many Brazilian agencies since.

Further example of simplicity is the advertisement that announces the Botero explosion at the Sao Paulo Modern Art Museum. It defines, with humour, the most striking characteristic of this Colombian artist, who only portrays enormous and obese characters.

Sparing joints and articulation is one of the most vital rewards of a tennis shoe for those who run every day. The Mizuno band is recognized by the Brazilian Orthopedic Society as having the most efficient impact- absorption system in the market.

Hence, imagining a tennis shoe between bones seems to be the simplest solution for the ad. That is how it was with VW as well. Discovering a double check and using it to strengthen the German brand's loyalty to the total quality of its products seemed extremely obvious to us.

Jean Marie Dru, then president of the Cannes Festival, remarked on some of the pieces that had won several Lions. ?Many creative directors in France would never support them. They are too simple. The French favor complexity.?

I'm an enthusiant of what is simple, of the search for hidden obvious, of the Japanese Hai Kai, of the exercise of reduction, of the capacity for the synthesis that Picasso had towards the end of his life. In answer to someone who criticizes that it was very easy to draw one of his bulles with a trace, he simply said: ?I took 50 years to do it.?