Harvard Publishing calls Better World Books the ‘real deal’ in terms of a triple bottom line – people, planet and profits. They call themselves ‘The Online Bookstore with a Soul’. Founded five years ago by three University of Notre Dame graduates (had to mention that right away, so proud), Better World Books is Amazon with a soul. They collect unwanted books from 1800 campuses and 1400 libraries, rescuing them from landfills. They sell what they can, returning a portion of the proceeds to the donating library and a portion to literacy programs. The unsold books go to literacy programs around the world. Books are shipped USPS for $3.97 using Carbonfund.com offsets.
This deceptively simply idea has grown to a $21 million operation with 200 full-time full-benefit employees that has done a tremendous amount of good. From the spring of 2003 through June 2008, Better World Books has collected more than 16 million books, raising more than $5.2 million for over 80 literacy and education non-profit organizations, sending over a million books to partner programs & saving over 8,000 tons of books from landfills. They have also set aside 5% of their stock option pool for their core literacy partners and purchased 2,400 tons of carbon offsets – and growing the company to $21 million in revenue. Now that’s a triple play.
Success does not seem to have made the three founders any less idealistic. I quote from their web site:
“We believe that literacy gives people water to drink, imparts knowledge to eliminate disease, and develops self-esteem that enables people to make their mark on the world. Our story has taken us to places we had never seen. Our dream is to continue to work for those whom we have never met.” The BWB Cofounders (from left to right): Xavier Helgesen, Jeff Kurtzman & Chris “Kreece” Fuchs
>”The real-world interaction of the internet and the ‘long tail’ of the Semantic Web will enable everyone to find the perfect job for them, the right opportunity, so that people in general are happier, healthier, and more productive.”
- Anonymous respondent
>”The result may be longer, less-efficient working hours and more stressful home life.” - Victoria Nash, director of graduate studies and policy and research officer, the Oxford Internet Institute
Which of these two views I agree with depends on whether my Comcast connection happens to be working that day. One of my 15-year old son’s friends shared that he wants to have a job like mine someday. From his vantage point, I suppose it looks pretty cushy — I work for myself, teach 2 days a week (and prepare 2 more), and pretty much work at my own pace. Problem is most of the time ‘my own pace’ is 24/7. That’s okay — most of the time. The exception is when I encounter a technology glitch that drains productivity and leaves me in a state of frustration. My friends and family are tired of hearing me whine about the many ways AT&T, Comcast, Sony, HP, Apple, Linksys, Netgear and more conspire against me.
So I was heartened to learn that my issues are not generational. According to the Pew Research Center, Millennials have just as much trouble with their technology as those of us who learned computer-ese as a second language. 18-29 year olds experience failures of their Internet, cell phones and computers at a rate roughly comparable to their elders.
As I sit here contemplating shifting my digital life over to a new, as yet unfamiliar laptop, I am reflecting on our digital dependency. Our lives and livelihoods are increasingly dependent on touch screens, touch pads and touchy software. I can only hope that there will be a parallel growth in services that make them all play nicely together.
Wine drinking is exploding in the U.S., driven by lower prices and increased interest on the part of Millenials (see earlier blogpost). Total inflation adjusted sales of wine in the U.S. have increased 20% over the past five years and are expected to growth another 16% in the next five years (Mintel, 2008). Wine outpaced every other non-water beverage category 2005-2007, including beer, although distilled spirits comes close in rate of growth.
So how do Millennials choose a wine? Surprise! Brand names in wine mean more to Millennials than to older wine drinkers. While the ‘animal names’ may not work with older wine drinkers, popular and memorable names like Yellow Tail can mean a lot to a Millennial. According to Mintel, 29% of 21-24 year olds and 31% of 25-34 year olds say “I prefer wines with casual and fun names such as Red Bicyclette, Three Blind Moose, compared to old-school names such as Bordeaux or Beaujolais.” This compares to just 18% for all adults. They are also more brand loyal. Millennials are much more likely than other adults to agree with the statement ‘I stick to (wine) brands I know’. The % of 21-24 year olds who say they decide based on brand (55%) is higher than the number who say they decide by price (48%). (See table above).
Millennials’ emphasis on brands helps explain the success of a new mobile phone app, Drync-wine. Launched originally in November, last week Drync added an iPhone application with the explicit goal of reaching “70 million tech-savvy Millennials, the fastest growing segment of the wine industry.” Here’s how they explain how it works:
Drync, LLC today announced the release of Drync-Wine, simplifying the way people research, remember, share, and purchase wine using their mobile device. Built initially for the iPhone, Drync-Wine is the only mobile wine application that scours multiple databases of nearly a million wine listings in real time to identify the exact wine a user is drinking. Perfect for the wine novice and connoisseur alike, Drync-Wine delivers expert reviews, ratings, descriptions, and pricing. Users may snap a photo of the label, save the wine to their own virtual wine cellar, add their own tasting notes, and even purchase the wine all from their mobile phone.
A million wine listings? With that many brands to choose from, this category seems perfect for social networking. Community features allow users to share wine information among friends. Future upgrades “enhanced community features such as twitter integration, enhanced sort and filtering of cellar data and wine recommendations.” Sounds smart to me. Click here to learn more from Drync’s blog.
I receive and send hundreds of emails a day and use four different email accounts. In generational terms, I am a digital Neanderthal. The average high school or college student uses 2.4 emails a day according to eROI. Students, on average, read marketing emails on a “rarely to never” basis, with 61% falling into this category, says the report. Only 16% are reading marketing emails on a frequent basis, while 66% of students rarely or never take action on marketing emails.
I know that better use of RSS feeds, Facebook, NetVibes and other Web 2.0 tools would simplify my email life and do wonders for my productivity. But I don’t make the effort to do it. However, I completely change my habits when communicating with Millennials. To reach my daughter and son quickly, text is the only way to go. My teaching assistants? Facebook messages. I once sent my TA’s Amazon gift certificates to their email address. It took a suggestion to their Facebook account to look for it before they even noticed.
So what are those two emails a day about? According to eROI, it’s probably got something to do with their parents. 81% got an email address for communicating with family. Students are now using email primarily to sign up for social networking sites (25%) and receive email alerts (36%) to keep up to date on what’s happening on their social networks. What’s clear is that email for marketing to this generation is dying, dead and buried. And who can blame them, with Cisco’s latest Annual Security Report showing that 90% of email is spam.
Okay, I’m not so old that I actually remember Joanie Sommers singing “Come Alive! Your (sic) In the Pepsi Gen-er-ation!” (See video if you were born after 1950). But I do remember some of the great generational Pepsi campaigns that followed. Seriously, is there any brand more closely tied to generational marketing than Pepsi? So it is not a surprise that Pepsi would make a run at being the choice of this new generation.
It’s starting with the release of research dubbed the “Pepsi Optimism Project” or POP. The research made a big splash by announcing the self-fulfilling finding that Gen Y is more optimistic than other generations.
When asked to select words to describe how they feel, eight in 10 (81%) selected “hopeful” and two-thirds (65%) chose “optimistic.”But Millennials (57%) are also much more likely than Gen Xers (49%), Baby Boomers (38%), and Post-War Americans (27%) to report feeling “excited” about the future.
Astonishing. Who knew?! Roll out the PR machine.
But wait there’s more insight ahead:
When Millennials are asked how to describe their views of the word “change,” nearly all of them (95%) make positive associations. They most often associate “change” with the concepts of “new” (79%), “progress” (78%), “hope” (77%) and “excitement” (72%). They are less apt to make negative associations with the word change. “Uncertainty” (59%), “concern” (52%), “stress” (40%) and “loss” (26%) ranked at the bottom of the list of words that come to mind. Two-thirds of Millennials (67%) say that the election of Barack Obama as president is making them feel optimistic about the future of the country.
Someone better tell the Obama folks. Be sure to tell them that Millennials are also optimistic about their health, their career, their finances, even their romantic prospects.
With these kind of insights, I can’t wait to see the ads. According to Pepsi, we can expect a “significant, multiyear reinvestment in carbonated soft drinks” and the debut of a new advertising campaign “featuring a consistent theme of optimism that mirrors the current social climate”. Let’s hope that their research leads them someplace more exciting than a Pepsi and a smile (oops, that was the other brand). As I have written before, this generation has yet to embrace an ‘iconic’ brand, and no doubt Pepsi wants to be it. But it will take a special effort to break through to this generation, and I am betting that a retread of Obama’s campaign is not going to do it.
A Google search on the term ‘Millennial’ today returned 1,900,000 hits (this blog was number 31!). With all the hype, I suppose it’s understandable that some marketers will view all the fuss as… well, hype! A poll of readers of the enewsletter, SmartBrief, shows half of all marketers agree it’s all hype. That is surprising to me. While there is a bandwagon element to the recent outpouring of news on Millennials, I think there is fire under the bandwagon, hence all the smoke (how’s that for metaphoria?). Here, again, are a few reason why Millennials matter to marketers:
1. Size. There are as many Millennials as Boomers and remember what a difference they made.
2. Taste. While they do like our music, they have different preferences in just about everything else. They are the trendsetters, especially in matters of entertainment and technology.
3. Politics. Millennial Makeover authors, Haig and Weingrad, got it right. Young voters were the difference and will continue to be for decades.
4. Values. Millennials are motivated differently. They want to make a difference in everything from the workplace to the environment. They just might do it.
My recommendation? Accept the hype and focus on the substance.
iPhones at Wal-Mart? If the rumors are true, Wal-Mart is about to become just the fourth place you can get an iPhone. While that would have been unthinkable a year ago, today it doesn’t look like such a crazy idea…. According to a new Comscore report, iPhones are fast movers among those making $25,000-$75,000. In the third quarter, iPhones were up 21% overall, but they increased twice as fast among moderate income people, +47%.
While a $100 phone and $70 a month calling plan (well, if you are careful anyway), may seem extravagant, it looks like a real bargain as an all-in-one substitute for a laptop and Internet account, and that’s before you factor in the cool factor.
“Mark Donovan, senior analyst, comScore, said “These data indicate that lower-income mobile subscribers are increasingly turning to their mobile devices to access the Internet, e-mail and their music collections… the iPhone is appealing to a new demographic… satisfying demand for a single device for communication and entertainment… ”
Since getting my iPhone in April, I have found myself leaving home without my laptop more and more. It’s just not necessary if all I am going to be doing is email, directions and checking breaking news. For people who are just plugging into the mobile digital life, the iPhone is the perfect starter kit. For Millennials, it may prove irresistible.
As a college professor, my immediate image of a ‘Millennial’ is a college student or recent college graduate– a digital denizen with an optimistic outlook. But an October 2008 report by Mintel says college students are just 15% of the 71 million young adults 18-34 in the U.S. ‘Affluent Young Adults are just 19%. So who makes up the lion’s share? By far the largest segment is what they call ‘Minimalists’ or ‘Unpowered Young Adults’.
Despite their similar age and cultural influences, Minimalists are quite different from their college student and affluent young adult counterparts. They are more likely to live with a parent (25%) and/or relative (14%). 29% are married. Nearly three in 10 (29%) live with a child. They have less spending power and index low on purchase of most discretionary items, high on essentials. They are more likely to be found at Wal-Mart or Sam’s Club than Whole Foods and Costco. They are much less likely to purchase online.
Minimalists are less likely to shop across channels because they tend to be more budget-conscious and often prefer to frequent stores where they are sure they can find “bargains” and discounts. Note, as well, that demand for premium foods and beverages and those designed specifically to promote health and wellness is quite low within this segment.
Thank you Mintel for reminding us that stereotypes are dangerous. What Minimalists lack in spending power, they more than make up for in numbers. 66% of any population is too many to be ignored.
This is funny because there is some truth to it. I have spent many nights editing and encouraging my own teens, but have no memory of any similar support from my own parents. There is objective evidence to support my experience: according to research by Jean Twenge, author of Generation We, as reported in the 11.20.08 Telegraph, today’s students do 20% less school homework than their parents said they did in 1975. The interesting part is that they think they work harder!
Prof Twenge and her team compared the 1975 and 2006 results from an annual US survey called Monitoring the Future which polls high school students about their views on life. They found that a third more 17 to 20-year-olds today believe they work harder than their parents did and will be better than them when it comes to being parents, spouses and work colleagues – earning them the nickname the Smug Generation.
The Millennials I know believe the world is more competitive for them than it was for their parents. They also believe that they will be more successful, despite the greater challenges. Perhaps they deserve the ‘Smug Generation’ label. Then again, perhaps the parents are more to blame than the students?
When I first started blogging about Millennial Marketing, there were few research summaries. Now there are almost too many. This new presentation by Resource Interactive is among the best I’ve seen. It incorporates some fresh in-depth primary research among 72 Millennials with a range of secondary sources – Jupiter, Census, Harris and Forrester. The quotes help break up the statistics and bring the data to life. It’s a little long, but the graphics are great and there are some good basic reminders about how to reach Gen Y near the end.
