Advertising effluent.

We hear endlessly from all sorts of people, in all sorts of media, about the necessity of reducing our carbon footprint. I'm all for that.

In fact, one of the great benefits of living in a dense urban concatenation is that we get to tread small on the environment. Though I log a fair amount of taxi miles, for the most part, I am a strap-hanger, and proud of it. And there's hardly a greener way to live in our modern world.

One of the things I've noticed as I live in the world, however, is how brands have expanded what I'll call their "pixel footprint."

They are ubiquitous and 'always on' in a hundred channels, providing "content," editorial and all sorts of "native" advertising.

Their pixel footprint is huge.

And for the most part irrelevant.

And noisy.

And unnecessary.

I'll go as far to say that most brands are, in fact, noise polluters. They are in and of the "conversation" because god-forbid they miss a moment to propagate their brands. But what they're really doing is just vomiting pixels wherever they go.

Very few brands are worth being engaged with, worth having a conversation with, worth hearing and reading about. But every brand, it seems, from Saran wrap to air freshener is putting out content that spills over everything like advertising effluent.

Some months or years ago--I'm still too ill to link to the post here--I wrote about a simple test you should subject your copy to. "Why should I care?"

Few have the discipline to ask what should be the most basic of advertising questions.