The responsibility for effective communicating is with the sender not the receiver. 

It’s the sender’s responsibility to get the receiver’s attention, to communicate in a language the receiver understands, and to assess the degree to which a message has been delivered, understood, accepted, and remembered.  It is clearly not the receiver’s responsibility to do any of these things, although one might argue, well-informed recipients have a tendency for being better listeners.

Today’s media clutter is exploding at exponentially accelerating and compounding rates. And, as information adds to clutter, it is also forcing people and their software to become more organized in the ways they accept, as well as search for, information. There is simply not enough time to notice, absorb, understand, react and remember everything.  Key words and other contextual references help us, as individuals, to process different kinds of information within different disciplines and domains for our different purposes.

And, as senders of helpful and relevant information that potentially serve the individual interests and needs of would-be receivers, we marketers are now better equipped with non-intrusive media dashboards that enable us to monitor, track and use online data, key performance indicators, and other critical metrics in real-time low-latency time frames – without invading anyone's personal privacy or security – to determine, create, manage, interact and deliver optimum message content within specific contextual settings and affinities that are significantly more relevant, timely, and useful to receivers than ever before.

Perception is reality. Media messages impact our perception of reality. Our dynamic  perception of reality changes with each new understood and accepted impression. Reality is different for each individual. Infinite grids of information stacked deep in galactic levels of 4-D complexity are out there, but reality is never any more or less real than our ability to notice, comprehend, integrate, process, and remember.

There is a logic to effective marketing campaigns. There's potential momentum among and between messages that you send. Continuity, consistency, and sequencing between messages work over time to optimize communications effectiveness. And a good brand strategy assures that those who receive your messages will recognize and remember that it is you – not somebody else – sending those messages.

No message you might send or value proposition you might make can have any significance when the sender's “identity” is unknown or shared. As perception becomes the reality, a shared identity obscures message significance and, in effect, assures its nonexistence. Your unique difference – your brand – sets you apart.