Terry O'Reilly on media clutter and risk in election ads

You know those bad advertisements the ones that seem to get under your skin and instantly turn you off of whatever product it is peddling.

The average Canadianis bombarded with 3,500 media messages a day and theclutter created is only building exponentially with time.

There is something you can do about it, according to marketing expert and award-winning host of CBC's Under the Influence,Terry O'Reilly.

"If you feel there's bad advertising and too much clutter, stop buying from the advertisers that are giving you all that bad advertising," he said.

"There's nothing that will get the attention of a corporation quicker than a drop in sales. Nothing."

So does the same logic apply in an election campaign, where we are bombarded with images and messages intensely for more than a month?

"I think it can backfire," O'Reilly said.

"There's so much negative political advertising. That's one of the tools of the trade. That can get annoying pretty quickly and I think that can actually turn people off voting possiblyfor a certain person or a certain partyif they feel that party starts to make their stomach turn."

Listen to Terry O'Reilly's full interview with Shawn Apel on CBC'sHomerun.