Marketing To Millenials? Read This.

"...listening to millenials not about just reaching that demographic. Rather it provides valuable insight about the market as a whole."

Hill & Knowlton, is an international communications consultancy and published this excellent Top 10 on what it takes to market to millenials.

Provide a reason. We want to buy into more than “this latest product/service is best”. And the latest technology upgrade 6.18 or new Orange Raspberry flavor isn’t going to cut it. Think more deeply about the rationale, what is the bigger picture.

Thrive does not equal Survive. You must evolve and grow with us, with the market. Otherwise you will lose relevancy, no matter how big you once were giants fall.

Be authentic and have values. We spend our money in an effort to support brands. The companies that walk the walk will have our support – in dollars.

Elusive isn’t the word, just stretched. Think broadly in terms of where you can reach me– and remember I only spend 1 of every 11 minutes online on a social network.

Entertain me. Consumer experiences matter, that is what we remember and talk about. And think about the whole marketing cycle because my experience with your brand extends well beyond purchase point.

Brands aren’t friends. But you should think more how to socialise with me then to sell to me.

Inspire. Lead us by example.

Empower me. We feel entitled because we grew up expressing ourselves online, how can you help me spread the word for you?

Quickly bored. It’s not ADD, it’s just that we are all inundated with massive amounts of brands messages. Keep it simple or loose mind space – quickly.

The age of Here and Now. I prefer to lease my car, pay as I go on my mobile, and expect real time help from my online bankng service. My sense of immediacy directly relates to who I interact with brands

You can check out other posts on the blog authored by Meghan Stuyvenberg here.

Good Enough?

Every few weeks it seems there is another survey done by Pew, Arbitron/Radar, and others reporting that some 90% of Americans still use radio. Fair enough.

Use it for what and for how long? I think that 90% number is misleading--by design. That number sounds so big and impressive. Start digging down, start looking at trends and patterns, and really examine usage (and passion) trends for those 30 (even 35 or 40) and under and you might have to stop looking before it becomes too much to take.

We all know it.

Some of us are trying to do something about it, but in many cases our efforts are falling on deaf ears as more and more people continue to be sidelined in our rapidly shrinking industry. It doesn't take a full staff to operate a jukebox and collect quarters.

It's never too late to innovate. It's never to late to bring good ideas to life. It's never to late to engage in appropriate R&D to better understand how to best develop new relationships. Please note I said relationships...not hardware. Hence: why HD Radio has been a MISERABLE FAILURE.

It's never too late to inspire passion. Never.

Radio has had some truly amazing highs, but in many/most cases its simply been "good enough." That is until good enough wasn't good enough anymore. For some radio will always be good enough. There will always be an audience for good enough. I hope we,collectively, can be better than good enough. We have to...our town now has many more games.

Here's a presentation taking a look at 50 youth marketing trends for 2009. Much of what is suggested in this outline can be applied to over the air broadcast radio and its on-line digital stablemates.

All 50 Youth Marketing Trends for 2009 by Graham Brown mobileYouth.org

View more presentations from Graham Brown. (tags: mobile mobileyouth)

Free Pizza on Facebook?

How do you make friends and fans? Give away free pizza. Of course Papa Johns is trying to get pizza-eaters in the habit of ordering their pizza on line. Click on the photo to go to the Papa Johns page.

What could you give away on your Facebook page? What client partnerships could be developed by using on-line tools like Facebook? You have a facebook page right?

Traditional advertising is in a world of hurt right now. I certainly don't need to tell you that. I am wondering out loud whether it will ever come back to previous levels. I will only say maybe, with a hint of doubt thrown in.

Whether it's programming trying to connect with listeners in different ways, or sales trying to find solutions for clients looking for new ways to reach customers we must look past traditional spots and promos to compete in our tech-crazed 21st century world.

Z100 in New York has:

My Network or Yours?

Many ambitious companies and radio stations have a social network vision. Excellent! Many will conceive and launch their own proprietary social network and bypass My Space, Facebook, and Twitter. Mistake!

Use "mass appeal" social networking to your full advantage.

Have a virtual place in which listeners and fans can interact with other listeners and fans, and directly with the radio station and its personalities. Additionally, through the "networking " piece of social networking, expand your friend/fan base by your (station) friends recommending YOUR space on My Space, etc. to their friends and so on.

Use the public social networking sites to stimulate interest and traffic to your content rich website. Go where the people are. Think of Twitter, Facebook, and the others as we used to think of the TV networks--and their ability to drive CUME. Your stations cume and the cume of your website.

If you are thinking this strategy is just for the kids. Think again. Time will show, they are for everyone.

Of course your website should be a community. Just don't forget that there are excellent options to help that community grow.

A Sign of The Times

None. (read on and you will understand)

If you were at your local mall and you (as an adult) were looking for the teen and young adult clothing and accessories store Hollister you might be hard pressed to find it. This very popular store features no sign over the doorway, has no windows looking in and it is nearly as dark as a movie theater.

Found this story about the Hollister stores at the Marketing Student website. The post included this photo peaking inside. (keep reading, I promise there's a radio angle to this story)

Here's the complete post:

"There’s nothing like the feeling of knowing that you don’t belong somewhere. I am reminded of this whenever I step inside a Hollister retail store, which is so teen it hurts.

No brand name over the front doors, no glass windows to see inside, and two Tiger Beat model types to greet you on the way in. The inside is so dark, ladies might feel the instinct to grasp the pepper spray inside their purses. An overbearing perfume/cologne mix hangs in the air. It’s almost as if they’ve designed the store to repel you, but their success clearly shows that Gen Y is responding.

Above is a peek inside one such store, which almost seems to go against every ergonomic and design rule conceived in the last 50 years. But perhaps that’s precisely why it’s so successful. Teens are always going to want to rebel against their elders, and this is just the latest iteration.

Or…maybe I’m just getting older. Next thing you know I’m yelling at kids to get off my lawn…"

Think about what you just read and consider how very different it is from every other store in the mall. Think about how different Gen Y's are compared to GenXer's. Think about how different we are going to need to program radio stations to even have a chance to connect with Gen Y. Some have argued it's a lost cause. I am of the mind that if we build it ("it" being very good, interactive, and compelling) they will come.

Forget about your quarter hour maintenance, forget about your laser-zap-swishes, forget about running your :07 second stopwatch on your jocks--forget it all.

Look, I am not saying set structure and all of the other radio basics are unimportant; but what I am saying is perfect execution of these tactics are not going to automatically make you a winner with Gen Y's.

Communication structures have changed. A recent study estimated that more than 70% of 15-34 year olds are members of social networks. Content expectations have changed. The hits are a dime-a-dozen. Free really. [Go to You Tube and within a couple of minutes you can search and build a playlist of the top 10 songs and be listening and watching them as quickly as turning on a radio and searching for a station that's playing a song you like.]

Yes, music can be a central theme. But we have to develop content and connections around the music that evoke similar feelings and emotions that those Hollister clothing and accessories stores do. Cool, different, hot, and most of all a place not for my parents!

***Addendum***

Occasionally the good folks at Radio-Info will post a story in the "guest mic" section and this Gen Y story is one of those stories. Executive Editor Dana Hall checked in with these comments. Thanks Dana!!

I’ve been in Hollister with my boyfriend’s 16 –year old daughter. The music was so loud that I had to leave several times to get away—and I love my music loud!

It was cool how they had a place ( a display) to actually look at all the CDs they played—like a juke box—that customers could pick to hear something (for free—it didn’t cost anything). That’s what really intrigued me. And it was all kind of underground, alternative rock stuff—but not really anything that I recall hearing on the radio.

Marketing and Product Converge

Here's a worthwhile slideshow I encourage you to read, digest, and SHARE.

Kudos to the creator, Ryan Moede of the socialmediaworx blog. He is a Digital Media Strategist at Viget Labs and has created a wonderful slideshow that illustrates today's marketing and product realities.

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