Archive for the ‘Gen Y’ Category
Monday, July 21st, 2008
A couple of weeks ago I was at Ad:Tech and besides meeting some companies who treated us like idiots and some that didn’t, there was a pretty decent talk by three creative directors with their own set of “Five golden rules” in advertising.
The first and the last creative directors gave typical rules like stay true to the brand etc. Very advertising in the ’90s or web1.0. Now one of them gave five points that were much, much more relevant to this day and age:
- Understand your consumer
- Own an issue, stand for something
- Spark & manage a conversation
- Involve your audience
- Aim for impact
Alright understand your consumer and aim for impact are normal, but while the other two were talking about transmitting one-way messages, at least he mentioned “conversation” and involving the audience.
If you’re paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to an agency to do your advertising, wouldn’t you rather it be an interactive, engaging effort instead of one of 2 million “impressions” that registered in their peripheral vision for all of two seconds? Because if you’re still engaged in the transmit model (i.e one way monologue) as opposed to conversation and two way dialogue, it seems like a waste of time. Especially if your demo is Gen Y.
Tags: ad:tech, advertising, advertising advice, conversation marketing, creative directors, engaging your audience, five golden rules, gen y demographic, one way monologue, reaching out to gen y, Singapore, transmitting messages, two way dialogue
Posted in Gen Y, Marketing, mainstream media | 4 Comments »
Tuesday, July 1st, 2008
So today Estee, Ian, Michael, Dorothy and I headed down to Sheraton Tower to speak to about 450 P&G Executives about Generation Y, the New Consumer and our purchase decisions as well as media consumption habits.
Michael, Dorothy and Ian getting ready.
Without a doubt, it was the biggest crowd I’ve ever spoken to (not including emceeing) and I hope they found it useful. One big concern (as always) is how “safe” it is to put your brands in the hands of consumers. As one of the execs put it, how do we know a blog won’t serve as a “brand spoiler”?
Left side of the room
Right side of the room.
I think it’s simple. The point I tried to hammer home today is: If your content or brand or product or service doesn’t suck, it won’t happen. By suck I mean the whole world hates it. I don’t think it has to be a perfect product, but a flawed one open to feedback is fine. And if you’re P&G, the textbook example for great brands, why should you be afraid? Your products should speak for themselves!
The one question I always want to ask is this: If you have kids (say, above 15). Do you really believe that your current media buying habits are in sync with their media consumption habits? I tried asking this today, but less than 10 people in the audience had kids over 15. So it became a moot point.
To some extent I think that’s a very dangerous position for an organisation to be in. If your key decision makers are at the age where they’re not interacting with Gen Y and think they are “safe” in the knowledge that what has worked for the last 30-40 years of marketing will still work, that spells trouble.
The smart companies will pick the brains of their youngest employees. MTV did that when I was there. Almost every week they would ask me “What would your age group think of this?” or “Is this lame to you?” or questions like that. I remember one instance where somebody two levels above my immediate superior (meaning she’s VP level) came to me and asked my opinion on some new VJ audition tapes.
I’m not trying to be a diva, but it astounds me that there were 140 students at Ad:Tech last week, and almost none of us were approached by execs just to talk.
Let’s put it this way: Every six months new graduates enter the workforce and decide what to buy with their newfound spending power. If you haven’t been communicating to them earlier, what makes you think you can do it now?
ps: While we’re on the topic of Gen Y. I found it weird to receive this as a “thank you” gift from P&G:
I don’t want to seem ungrateful but… Boss for women? I don’t get it. In future, either get “thank you” gifts that can go to either sex, or label your “thank you” gifts appropriately.
Tags: brand spoiler, brands in the hands of consumers, communicate asia, dorothy poon, geek goddess, generation y, media consumption habits, p&G, proctor & gamble, purchase decisions, sheraton tower, the new consumer
Posted in Gen Y, Marketing | 9 Comments »
Sunday, June 29th, 2008
Remember my earlier post where OMD treated about 140 students like idiots and thought we didn’t know they were farming for ideas under false pretenses? Well here’s the flip side.
MTV came in after lunch with their execs in regular MTV attire, and gave us a straightforward, no bull$#!t account of what life is in MTV. Talking around with my friends afterwards, the general sentiment that they were the most “genuine” of the three companies that we interacted with that way. No “rehearsed” lines provided by PR or HR, no “dumbing down” because we’re students and they’re execs, and I think that made the difference.
I think the proof showed when many students went up to find out more from the MTV execs after the panel discussion.
I think anyone who was at the earlier panels would know that the crowd largely dissipated once they ended, but people actually had to be ushered out of the room this time. Maybe the “clout” of the MTV brand name is stronger? I don’t know.
Lesson learnt? We may be young, but we know when we’re being treated as proper talent that your company may want to hire, and will respond in kind. Maybe companies want to think “Ahh, undergrads are a dime a dozen, they’ll flock to us anyway. Just show them all the awards we’ve won and credentials we have”. Perhaps that’s true for the masses, but the sensing I get is we want to work with companies we identify with, who recognise that we aren’t a dime a dozen, and we’ll seek out the best companies which treat us as such, and not like we’re a dime a dozen.
(Full disclosure: I served my internship with MTV last week and will be re-joining them on Tuesday on a freelance project. If anything this proves my point because if they truly were faking their panel discussion, why would I go back?)
Tags: Gen Y, idea farming, mtv, mtv asia, mtvasia, omd, omniture, treating students like idiots
Posted in Gen Y | No Comments »
