What advertising can do.

We all know the statistics. How many ads and messages we are bombarded with each day. How many images and words are sent our way. How busy and cluttered and crowded our brains have become. We trot out this information as if it were a new phenomenon. (Which it's not.)

Posit that for a second and let me run this by you.

At its highest form, the purpose of advertising is to bring order to the universe. Amid the noise, advertising can bring clarity.

In my 26+ years in the business, I've seldom worked with a client who actually knows what they sell. So despite the color coordination that branding people have imposed, most brands remain cacophonous and dissonant.

The brands we love, and it seems we all pretty much love the same brands, are clearly defined and they don't waver from their definition regardless of what they're selling.

The issue that most brands are facing is a mass of their own messages in various media without the clarity of definition. They use the latest technologies and channels and chatter but they haven't done the most important job they can do.

Saying who they are. What they stand for. And how they behave.