Every few months I get asked to weigh in on a debate about messaging. Conventional wisdom says “stay on message,” or the audience will get confused.

We have to belive our audiences are more intelligent than that. Yes, you want to convey a single brand, but that brand, product, service, etc. can carry a lot of messages to a lot of different audiences.  Ideally you deliver a targeted message at the audiences highest moment of interest rather than a generic message with no correlation to moments of engagement.

If an audience receives multiple messages, they focus on the one that resonates for them and ignore the rest. You only have to worry when you have time for one message to one audience, or when your message don’t accrue to your brand proposition. Choose the wrong one and you’re in trouble. But if you have multiple touchpionts and can identify moments of interest, than deliver multiple messages.

     Take Go Daddy as an example of multiple audiences with distinct messages. Your average consumer has heard the Go Daddy message, that they’re an easy and fun way to get on the Internet.

On the other hand they message IT and digital agencies with an efficiency message. Some of my largest clients use Go Daddy. They’re not choosing Go Daddy for Danica Patrick. And yes, they hear the consumer message, but it’s not relevant, so they ignore.