Monday, May 24, 2010
How to Sell to Millenials
Our generation doesn’t want to be communicated to like that anymore. Our generation is one that grew up being bombarded with advertising everywhere. We know that we’re often being lied to, and we’re getting a little pissed off about it. We’re jaded and cynical about advertising, and irony is a second-language to us (if there aren’t enough ironic moustaches and three-wolf-moon shirts in your neighborhood, they soon will be). Kotex has a campaign that I think is more effective at reaching us than Miracle Whip was, all because it understands the way our generation acts.
I’m not a Kotex user (and, barring some massive operations, never will be). I have no idea what girls expect out of ads for “feminine hygiene products,” and I don’t know whether its sales are going to increase or decrease. I could care less about what product Kotex is selling, but their UbyKotex campaign is, in my opinion, done very well and tailored to our generation well. The ads (here and here)basically make fun of every tampon commercial. The imagery, the dancing girls, the white pants….they’re all lampooned here. Instead of reinforcing these old clichés, these ads decide to make fun of them, Kotex admits to its own previous BS. This sort of straight-talk is something our disillusioned generation respects, and I suspect this is exactly why Kotex went with this strategy.
Companies that want to sell something to us are going to have to begin talking like us. This doesn’t necessarily mean using our slang (that changes far too fast), but at least using our tone. We’re a generation that grew up on the Simpsons, Conan, and Seinfeld. We’re used to sardonic humor, satire, and meta-comedy. We know how to make fun of ourselves, and we expect that a brand should be able to make fun of itself too. So, the takeaway for brands here is that if you want to sell something to us, don’t dumb the message down, and don’t forget who you’re communicating to. We’ll listen, but only if you get our tone right. Either give us the straight facts or make it funny, but do not assume we're dumb one-way recipients of your message.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
RIP Privacy, Hello Transparency
Think about your life online. You probably have a Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn account if you’re my age (or at least one of them). You’ve probably shared most of your public contact information (email, phone number, Skype/AIM name) with something on the internet, and you probably also skipped over the legal mumbo jumbo that tells you how they are able to use it. Anytime you send an email, researchers can scour them for keywords and use that data. Here we are, in the age of rabid transparency.
In this strange new world of transparency, how you interact on the internet will be remembered forever. The pages you view, the comments you make on youtube, the tweets you send out. It just makes me happy that I barely missed the age of putting your baby doing stupid stuff on Youtube (I’ll take 5 sets of eyeballs over 13 Million, thank you very much). These things are all being archived (if they aren’t, somebody is missing an opportunity). Eventually, this archive will be a time capsule, a small look into our lives in the new millennium (BEFORE everyone had hover cars and jetpacks and sentient housemaid robots). But now, it can be used for research and meaningful insights, delivering you targeted advertising based upon your internet habits. What we’re seeing now is a rise in accountability. Your 15 minutes of fame have been extended indefinitely (Andy Warhol would have loved the internet). You can’t burn your online diary, shred your emails, or hide the video tapes Watergate-style. Once it’s on the internet, it’s there for good.
So, what do you do to hide from Big Brother Facebook? You could just avoid the internet completely (Brother Jebediah), but that doesn’t seem realistic these days. The key to surviving this new world is to manage your online presence. Make sure that nothing too inflammatory comes out of your keyboard, keep the dirty pictures out, and watch where you visit. Make sure everything you do online is really just an extension of who you are. If everyone’s watching, at least wave your flag.
All this being said, I think this transparency is a good thing; it makes us look more human when some of our failures are up on the internet. It’s also nice to know that most of the time when you’re giving out information, you’re not really your name. You’re just an 18-34 year old male from Wisconsin. None of the personal information is collected; your likes, dislikes, and visits are aggregated to form a larger data set. This data is then used to figure out what advertisements to send you, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s just an internet experience catered to you. So, the key to surviving the brave new world of internet transparency is the same advice your mother has been telling you all of your life: be yourself.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
The Case For Twitter
This Ain’t Your Grandma’s Media Landscape We’re in an age of clutter. Advertisements are everywhere; TV, the internet, radio, billboards, before movies, during sporting events…even on people (Forehead Advertising is real). We’re overwhelmed. It’s inescapable, and we as consumers are getting annoyed. We’re so mad, in fact, that we ignore most ads; DVRs allow us to skip ads on TV and iPods let us bypass the radio. We’re sick and tired of being told what to buy, what services to use, where to eat, and how to live. How does a brand cut through the clutter? Enter Twitter, which turns a brand into your friend.
Target Practice Let’s pretend you’re at an archery range in the traditional media landscape. The brand is an archer, and the brand’s message is the arrow. Guess what, Sucker, you’re the target! The brand shoots its message at you, and you just have to sit and take it. Not so fun, huh? Well, social media gives you a bow and allows you to shoot right back. Now we’re talking.
One of the biggest benefits of Twitter and social media in general is that it allows a brand to have a conversation with its customers. Instead of broadcasting a message, a brand can actually engage consumers in real-time. Think of it as an always on-call customer service department. If someone has an issue with your product, you can respond swiftly before it gets negative publicity. Compliments about your brand? You can Retweet it to your followers and spread the good news. Customers learn to trust your brand, and good friends are always listened to.
Listen Up Twitter also empowers consumers to have conversations with each other about your brand, increasing Word-of-Mouth advertising for your brand. Twitter lets a brand listen to its consumers in real-time, and provides a constant stream of insights about products, services, and how to improve overall customer service. Twitter becomes the World’s Biggest and Best Focus Group, and your brand becomes the World’s Least-Creepy Eavesdropper.
Convinced? Twitter matters. In an age where consumers are constantly bombarded with communications they don’t want to receive and can ignore, Twitter cuts through the clutter. Twitter facilitates communication between your brand and its customers, and also internet chatter into meaningful insights. Drink the Twitter kool-aid. Connect to consumers, collect information, and correct mistakes. Join the conversation.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Rebranding Isn't Just For Brands
“Where you come from is gone, where you’re going to was never there, and where you are ain’t no good unless you can get away from it”
-Flannery O’Connor
As I sit here on Graduation-Eve Eve, desperately trying to study but ultimately failing (I’m listening to music and my test is about music, so….win?), I find myself thinking about the future. Monday, May 16th is LITERALLY the first day of the rest of my life. Everything’s changing. The only world I know is going to be gone (though I’ve still got plenty of debt to remind myself of college). It’s a little terrifying, but it’s also new, which is incredibly exciting. So, instead of mourning four years of my life that will rank as the most enjoyable, wild, and exciting ever, I might as well see the positive sides of graduating.
Congrats, class of 2010! We each get a graduation present: the opportunity for reinvention. The best brands, products, and services adapt based on changes in culture, trends, and technology. Unless you’re Coca-Cola, you don’t stay relevant for so long by being the same. I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t be able to rebrand ourselves.
Rebranding. Don Draper did it (yes, he’s a TV character. I watch TV. Get over it). Dick Whitman didn’t like who he was and where he was from, so he changed into Don Draper. He took the hidden parts of his personality and projected them. Robert Zimmerman did it, too. Here’s a kid from northern Minnesota who decided there was something better out there, picked up his guitar and moved to New York to become Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan is the best example of personal rebranding I can think of. Musically, he went from folk and blues to protest music to surrealist electric rock to country. And that's only the first decade of his career.Hell, if the Rolling Stones can make a disco album, you can change too. Become someone new. Reinvent. The world is dynamic. Not even your personality should stand still.
Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t whitewashing the past. It’s not even really about looking more appealing to recruiters and higher-ups at your job. It’s about the opportunity to let others see you in a different way. We’re in for a lifetime of first impressions, but in these next few months and years we’re going to be experiencing a TON of them. Make them count. Play around with different sides of your personality, see which one fits. Nobody said you had to figure out who you were yet, so use that to your advantage.
I’m not talking about some extreme, Britney-Spears-shaving-her-head change. This isn’t Urkel making a machine that turns him into a suave, debonair Stephan Urquell (not all the TV I watch is high quality). This is about is taking existing parts of your personality and messing around with the percentages a little bit to let other aspects of your personality shine. Become more outgoing by forcing yourself to speak up at group events, even if it’s a little stressful. Tell more jokes. Argue with people. You’re no longer bounded by everyone already knowing who you are, so there are very few preconceptions about you. Use that. It’s a wonderful gift.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Recruitment Rebellion
Ever since high school, I've been told to play the game, to get involved. The end goal of this, they said, was to have something to put on your college application and your resume. I never liked the idea of doing something or joining anything for the sole purpose of padding my resume. I didn't play the game, but I worked hard and did what I wanted, and I still got into UW-Madison. I'll still get the job I want. Eventually.
Here's what I propose. Call it "Free Freelancing." Give me work to do, for free, and see what I'm capable of. If I'm going to be writing copy, give me a product and a target market and let me work something out. Give me a problem and I'll solve it, or at least try. If you like my work, give me more work. If that work is what you're looking for, we can talk long-term. It's cost-effective, it's risk-free, and I imagine it's a better predictor of future success than an interview. No games, no embellishing, no masks. If formal interviews are first dates, this is having coffee with someone you kinda might be into.
If it sounds like I'm condemning people for playing the game, I'm not. I'm just looking for a job on terms that are more attractive for me.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Talkin Bout My Generation: Who We Are
That's us. It's who we've been branded as by whoever decides what generations are titled. The text generation. The twittering masses. Whatever we are, people want to define us, and sell to us. Those Miracle Whip ads (mayonnaise is HARDCORE) were made to get us to buy it. Everyone seems to have their opinion on us, so let's at least try to bust up some misconceptions.
Entitled. The word we all use for people who get something that they don't deserve. Apparently we're entitled because we believe in big salaries, big job titles, big lives. And you know what, they're right. We DO feel like we deserve all of that. But who can blame us? We're the ones who are paying an incredible amount of money for the same knowledge our parents got at a fraction of the price. We need a big salary because their generation made student loans a HUGE hurdle in our twenty-something lives. We'll be paying our school loans off at the same time as our mortgages. So maybe we do deserve that salary. Why else do we feel so entitled? We're the "good job for trying!" generation that got a trophy for being in last place, just because we participated. If you congratulate every kid for just being a part of something, we're going to want to be rewarded just for being there. Blame's on you, old fogies. And Big Lives? I blame celebrity culture, but maybe that's an argument for another time.
Nine to Five. Does anyone work those hours anymore? They don't make sense anymore, and maybe we're just the first people to pick up on this fact. In a globalized world, there is no nine-to-five. There is only working and not working. The last thing any of us wants to do is be stuck in rush hour, listening to some crappy morning or night DJ, to go into a meeting to accomplish something that could be done just as easily through Skype or AIM.
There's probably some truth to the idea that we're just not as smart as our generational predecessors, without using that darned "web thing." They probably know every state capital, who was Secretary of State in 1956, and how to quickly and painlessly do any long division we throw at them, but maybe that's irrelevant. We have technology, suckas. I bet we can find any of that information out just as quickly using google, wikipedia, or a calculator. So, unless we've crashed our plane onto a remote island and need to figure out who was the Chief of Staff under Hoover, I think we'll be alright.
So, that's part of who we are. I'm sure there's more. We're different, but we'll survive.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Exile on State Street: On Graduation and What's Next
People keep asking me if I'm ready to graduate, if I'm excited for whatever comes next, etc etc. I never have any idea how to answer them because there are so many emotions associated with it: fear, anticipation, exhiliration, fun, sadness...pretty much all of the above. Most of all, an overwhelming sense of confusion is the way I guess I could describe it, because after graduation life is just one big uncertainty at this point.
I've had my fair share of fun (and your share, too) in the last four years and I'd like to think I've learned a few things in class. But, more than academics, I think the learning has been going on outside of the classroom. Things you learn when you aren't attempting to learn seem more relevant to me: time management, budgeting, social skills, stress management. These aren't usually things I would associate with school, though most of them are applicable to the classroom as well.
The point is, while I'm not discounting what I've learned from school, I've learned a whole lot more about myself and my abilties on my down-time.
What's Next. I have no idea, and most of the people I've talked to have no idea either. I would venture to say 75% of the people I know who are looking for post-grad "real-person" work are stilll searching, still applying, still interviewing. With less than 45 days left, we're scrambling. We're scared, confused, and uncertain. Still, we've survived 4 years at UW and lived to tell about it, so we shouldn't be. We're intelligent, we're talented, and we're adaptable. That should be about enough for anyone to want us.
This all being said, here are a few things I've learned.
- Interviewing is like bad speed-dating. You go in, talk to a person you've never met about yourself for a half-hour, and then hope they ask you for a second date. There's a fair share of awkward pauses, forced laughter, and plenty of fake smiles. All of this is done hoping you'll somehow make a connection and will begin a long-term relationship.
- Applying for jobs is a crapshoot. Half of the jobs you want, you'll never hear from. There are scam jobs out there, preying on people like us. It's a minefield, people, and we're all on our own.
- There's got to be a better way to get a job. Interviews and resumes just encourage us to lie, embellish, and generally act fake. This is all fine and well for speed-dating, but just will lead to disappointment when they learn you aren't who you say you are. With all of the blogs, social media sites, etc available we should be able to be ourselves. People could learn more about me from my facebook, twitter, and writing than through "tell me about a time when..." questions.
I think I like the idea of writing again, so maybe next entry will be something about our generation, the so-called "millenials." There's a lot to be said.
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