Marketing to Millennials: Are you sure you want to?
Is this push short-sighted? There's not a doubt in my mind that what is perceived as trendy, fashionable, or “in” is influenced largely upon the opinions of the younger generation. That being said, Millennials are one of the smaller demo. groups. Not only that, but they also have much less buying power than young professionals and established businessmen and women. Jean Twenge, author of the book Generation Me, credits Millennials with possessing the traits of confidence and tolerance, however, they also exude a certain narcissism and self-entitlement.
Should you market to Millennials? Yes…but as a part of a broader, more holistic approach…perhaps to paint a picture of a product as being trendy that will ultimately have a trickle-down effect on older, more affluent demos.
Marketing Evolved
Consumers are continually becoming more and more sophisticated, especially in an age where we now quantify and track everything. This allows marketers and advertisers to embrace that kind of transparency, put together their own research, and disseminate that information to a more targeted audience, which makes your advertising far more efficient with fewer wasted dollars. The role marketing plays has become more comprehensive, including processes such as planning, implementation, and monitoring & analytics (Manning and Reece, 2008). Analytics have become increasingly important because consumers want to measure success and revise the plan of attack if there are any shortcomings. Instead of putting together a plan and putting the product out there for eyes to see, the marketer now needs to make sure the right eyes see it and with a certain amount of frequency.
At the end of the day, the name of the game is value, and what you can bring to the table will ultimately determine your level of success. Offering a superior value guarantees satisfaction which earns loyalty (Day, 1994). Marketing in contemporary America now favors the cultivation of relationships, proving once and for all that it is, and always has been, all about the people.
Super Bowl vs Olympics vs World Cup
This is the epitome of comparing apples to oranges. The Super Bowl is a single-day television event, largely isolated to just the United States. The Winter Olympics, while international, doesn't have the same kind of viewership that the Summer Olympics has, possibly because it largely excludes countries that don't participate in winter sports. The Winter Olympics also has the advantage of putting up large numbers because it is televised on multiple stations that showcase multiple events over the course of a couple weeks.
The World Cup trumps even the Olympics. It is a month-long event that takes place in the summer and televises the world's most popular game to an international audience. Corporate sponsorships are priced ~$75 million per sponsorship. That's nearly 20 times the cost of a Super Bowl ad, BUT this includes a lot of bonus spots and a confirmed number of spots that eclipses 400. This puts increased pressure on agencies and corporations to keep their message fresh because no one wants to be diluted with the same commercial over 400 times for a month.
The Olympics offers more competitive rates over a sustained period, but ratings will likely diminish based on time of day, event, and so forth…Figure skating may not appeal to a younger audience, whereas snowboard superpipe may not appeal to an old crowd.
The trick to determining whether or not to advertise during one of these highly visible sporting events is to do some thorough cost analysis and opportunity cost analysis and decide which suits your target demographic best. Will the impression you get with a Super Bowl ad give you the frequency you want? Will the frequency you get with a World Cup or Olympics ad reach the number of people you want it to reach (think Croatia vs Cameroon in the WC or Curling for the Olympics)?
Regardless of what happens, the CPM will continue to rise and so will the price for a single spot (as high as $10 million/ 30 seconds for the Super Bowl by 2040). Why does this happen? It's not just because of the VOLUME of people reached, but the quality of ads increases on the world's biggest stages. During the Super Bowl, people don't turn the channel, the viewership of advertisements actually EXCEEDS that of the game itself! Exciting times indeed….
A Splash Of Color
We just wrapped up the second in a series of 9 artists completing their artwork on designated portions of the automobile. That means 7 more local artists will be given the opportunity to render absolutely anything they would like on a mobile canvas. During next year's One Spark, the car will be raffled off and the artists' work will be showcased to the masses, with all proceeds being split evenly among the 9 artists. If you haven't seen the artists in action, I would encourage you to come out to Art Walk next time and experience the live music, crowds, and libations surrounding this evolving piece of modern art. The artists have a limited amount of time to finish their work, so it's very fast-paced and exciting to see things take shape right in front of your eyes. The event happens right in front of Mad Men Marketing on 111 E. Bay St. in downtown Jacksonville at what has been collectively dubbed “The Elbow”.
New Fall Season Changes Media Buying
New fall shows, mean new ratings. New ratings mean new places to spend your money and a new audience to see your product or service. The new fall season will definitely shake up prime time, although I don't foresee CBS relinquishing the cobra clutch they have on Thursday nights. I encourage everyone to get excited, step out of your box, and break with the norm a little. You might be glad you did.
For those of you who advertise, rest assured that Mad Men Marketing will be their every step of the way, monitoring viewing habits with NSA-like precision, down to what people DVR. We are the only agency in the market to implement Rentrak, a service that gives us an extensive breakdown of what viewers watch based on innumerable sub-categories and demographics. While Nielsen utilizes an archaic journal-entry style system with less than a thousand people in the Jacksonville market participating (less than 1/8 of one percent), Rentrak uses 68,000 set top boxes that you're already using to gather data (roughly 8 percent). This is what sets us apart among agencies, being well-informed of where to spend YOUR money on advertising and being ahead of the curve with a research-oriented approach.