Simplicity has always been a good approach for effective marketing and branding communications. Logos like Bass Ale (Britain's first registered trademark), fonts like Helvetica, and the classic Volkswagen ads are examples of simplicity that revolutionized the advertising industry.

And if anything, the distinction that simplicity can bring is more important in today's cluttered, over-saturated media environment than ever before. Consumers see an estimated 3,500-5,000 marketing messages a day. They literally don't have the hours in the day to digest all the ads marketers push at them. So if you want consumers to consider reading your message, make it at least appear to be a quick read.

Of all the things you can do to make virtually any form of communication better, this is the most important.

Strong yet simple concepts also tend to work much better across multiple media. And the more a big idea transcends different media, the more efficiently that campaign can be developed, which leads into the next point.