Extending Your Media Reach To get the attention of multitasking consumers, position your ad message in multiple media.

What's the number-one goal of any well-rounded media program? To help customers remember and act on your messages. It's easy to say but far more difficult to accomplish. Not only are you fighting the clutter in individual media, but you're also struggling for attention from consumers who are actively multitasking.

New research shows 70 percent of all consumers, at one time or another, use media simultaneously. While listening to the radio, for example, nearly 60 percent of consumers also go online, almost 50 percent read a newspaper, and about 18 percent watch TV, according to the "Simultaneous Media Usage Study" conducted by BIGresearch, a consumer market intelligence firm, in fall 2003.

Direct communication with consumers rarely occurs one-to-one, thanks to simultaneous media usage. Suppose you send your customers a direct-mail package. While reading it, nearly three-quarters of them will also watch TV, about 60 percent will listen to the radio, and 35 percent will even go online.