Served daily just for you: 1033 ads

Jan 5, 2009 by Dirk Singer

That’s the amount we’re exposed to every day according to the Zakazhuka Zoo, who will be expanding on these stats in a forthcoming issue of Marketing Magazine (Australia).

This information overload we experience in the West reminded me of something I posted a few months ago.

Dutch marketer Martijn van Osch did something that’s counter intuitive in our industry (where the orthodoxy is be as informed as possible) and shut himself off from all but one news website, two magazines and taped TV documentaries.

Five months on, he found five changes for the better including feeling generally more optimistic:

“Around the world a lot of bad things are happening. I can’t deny that. But if you put all those bad things in newspapers, TV shows, news programs, magazines and on websites, you start to believe that the world around you is a bad place.”

I noticed this myself this morning when reading a copy of City AM (a free business paper handed out in central London) while on the tube. Pretty much the whole issue was cover to cover filled with dire financial warnings and commentary – you can’t help feeling despondent or anxious when being exposed to a constant drum beat of bad news.

I didn’t pick up another paper for the rest of the day – and actually felt better for it.

Image, from DP Dialogue / The Zakazukha Zoo