I recently started reading Made to Stick by brothers Chip and Dan Heath, and came across something that… well… stuck.  Early in the book, the authors set the stage by uncovering six principles to making ideas stick.  The first of these six is the principle of simplicity.  In their words, “we must relentlessly prioritize… we must create ideas that are both simple and profound.”   It struck me that especially today, this has not only become necessary, it’s a vital practice of our day to day lives both as consumers and as marketers.

There are countless discussions around how the limitations imposed by social media sites like Twitter and predecessors like text and instant messaging have ruined our ability to speak and communicate effectively.   But multiple streams of communication -  email, websites, cell phones, television, radio, RSS feeds, newspapers (still!) – pound away at us daily, vying for our finite attention.  It’s no wonder communication has had to become more concise.  Prioritizing the message, focusing on the core, and keeping it simple, yet profound has become the challenge of this new world order!

Marketers struggle with this everyday.  We gather and pour over mountains of data to support the method, purpose, angle and course of our messages.  We renlentlessly persue the simple and profound message.  But even then, there comes a point when it’s completely out of our hands, and we can only hope that we’ve done our jobs , and the message will stick.