Millennial Marketing

The Addams Family as drawn by Charles Addams

On Friday, my family and I saw a terrific new musical in Chicago, The Addams Family. The show was inspired by Charles Addams’ 1920′s and 1930′s New Yorker cartoons (also the inspiration for the 1960′s TV sitcom and 1970′s movie).  It’s a great show, especially for its message about families: it’s okay to be a little strange.

For those of you who may be too young to remember, the Addams family is not just eccentric, it is downright macabre. They are ‘weird’ by any definition — pet spiders, a fascination with cemeteries, torture, and the color black. Yet, underneath their peculiar interests, the Addamses are fairly conventional –even admirable! 

The Addamses are close-knit and loving. Morticia is an exemplary mother to her children, Wednesday and Pugsley. Morticia and Gomez still have a passion for each other, reserving 7:00 each evening for their special tango. They support their children and cheer their unusual accomplishments. They provide a home to their extended family members, Uncle Fester and Grandma. They are unfailingly friendly and gracious to outsiders. In the world of the Addamses, they are not the problem, it is the outside world, that judges them by a different standard, that is to be pitied. The Addamses understand that in the areas that truly matter, they get it right and they feel sorry for those who don’t. 

The central truth of the Addams Family is this:  all families are weird. What kid hasn’t thought they were the ‘Wednesday Addams’ of their family, the only normal one in a house of loonies? Who hasn’t felt a small sense of dread bringing someone home to ‘meet the parents’? Would they behave themselves? Would they seem ‘normal’? What is ‘normal’ anyway?

Now ratchet the argument up to the generational level. Aren’t all generations shaped by parents that are essentially conventional, but eccentric in ways that will look strange to those of previous or later generations? TIME magazine’s November 20 cover story, “The Growing Backlash Against Overparenting“, describes in great detail the eccentricities of Boomer and Gen X parents in the 90′s and 00′s, actually going so far as to call them ‘insanities’.

“The insanity crept up on us slowly; we just wanted what was best for our kids. We bought macrobiotic cupcakes and hypoallergenic socks, hired tutors to correct a 5-year-old’s “pencil-holding deficiency,” hooked up broadband connections in the treehouse but took down the swing set after the second skinned knee. We hovered over every school, playground and practice field — “helicopter parents,” teachers christened us, a phenomenon that spread to parents of all ages, races and regions.”

Desiree Kane, a Millennial, writes in her blog “Heroes Rising“ what it was like to be the focus of parental anxiety and overnurturing. She uses the metaphor of  ’100% child safe’ to highlight the lengths parents went to ensure their children’s success.

“Simply stated, early wave Millennials grew up in a culture of metrics. Our Boomer parents wanted to know if we were hitting benchmarks at the appropriate times, if we were where we were supposed to be for our age, etc. We grew up in an age of hyper-parenting. “Child safety” initiatives in overdrive was but a daily occurrence in our households. So much so that this extreme awareness of external factors that could possibly hinder achievement of childhood milestones was reflected in parenting styles shifting to everything being 100% child safe. Things MUST be “childproof” so nothing could stand in the way of the achievement of their special, one of a kind child. In fact, “childproof” in terms of “safeguarding a child’s future” could be a euphemism this day in age for “I’m the parent and my kid is going to do what I say, regardless of what they’re naturally inclined to do/be.”

In retrospect, this approach to parenting seems a little nutty, but trust me, it seemed normal at the time (despite gentle reproaches from our own parents — why don’t you just let them play, dear?)  According to TIME, change is coming.  Parenting styles are shifting again, partly in response to earlier ’insanities’ and partly in response to the necessities imposed by the recession. What’s more, families seem to be better off for it.

“A backlash against overparenting had been building for years, but now it reflects a new reality. Since the onset of the Great Recession, according to a CBS News poll, a third of parents have cut their kids’ extracurricular activities. They downsized, downshifted and simplified because they had to — and often found, much to their surprise, that they liked it. When a TIME poll last spring asked how the recession had affected people’s relationships with their kids, nearly four times as many people said relationships had gotten better as said they’d gotten worse.”

 

Desiree Kane agrees that Millennials are likely to show a different, more ‘hands-off’ parenting style with their own children. She attributes this to both a reaction to how they themselves were raised and a greater tolerance for diversity and individuality. 

“Millennials won’t safeguard their kids as much by pushing them towards a set life path. They won’t enroll them in after school college prep programs while they’re in middle school, etc. I think we’ll see a shift away from focusing on milestones and metrics. I think we’ll notice a move towards less ‘safeguarding’ children’s future because truly, whatever Gen Y children turn out to be will be just fine for Gen Y to accept since we accept and encourage diversity & individuality so much within our peers today.”

This prediction is more credible than a prediction that Millennials will parent the same way they were parented. Yet, I also think there may be more that unites the generations — call them ‘Addams Family Values’ — than separates them. The changes may be show on the surface, but the essential conventionality is the same.

According to a newly released longitudinal study by Nickolodeon, the generational gap is fairly narrow when it comes to matters of real importance. They like each other and want to spend time ‘hanging out’ together. Parents worry just as much about whether they have enough family time as they do about finances.

 “Today’s families are different from what we’ve seen and come to expect from previous generations, in that staying together and playing together are the top priorities among everyone in the household,” said Ron Geraci, SVP of Nickelodeon Research. “Instead of being divided by tastes and clashing over values and things like music and entertainment choices, today’s parents, kids and grandparents are being drawn closer together by them, as well as embracing new value systems of tolerance and acceptance.”

76% of parents of 2-21 year-olds say they feel extremely close to their child today, while only 25% of grandparents reported that they felt close to their own child.

Today, 49% of parents have one of their own parents living within 30 minutes from them; and 10% percent have a parent living with them in their home.

Today’s first-time grandparents are an average age of 48 (source: AARP), and have a central role in day-to-day family life.

61% of parents of 2-17 year-olds say the grandparents assist with raising the kids

56% of sons ages 8-21 years-old share the same taste in movies as their fathers, and 48% enjoy listening to the same music.

64% of daughters 8-21 years-old share a similar taste in movies as their mothers, and 44% share the same sense of fashion and clothing as their moms.

82% and 77% of families are watching TV or movies together at home, respectively, each week.

41% of parents and kids are listening to music together; and 36% are playing games together.

Ad Age and JWT recently published a whitepaper on ‘Real Moms’ based on a survey data among moms and dads of all ages. The data is broken out for Millennial women and men (18-29 years). It reveals the importance they place on having a family and a committed relationship. 82% of Gen Y women and 61% of Gen Y men say it is ‘very important’ to ‘be married/in a committed relationship’ at this point in their lives.  70% of Gen Y women and 43% of Gen Y men say it is ‘very important’ to ‘be a parent’ at this point in their lives.

With family values like that, the Addams Family should have a nice long run in the theatre.

A logo designed to appeal to Millennials?

“One of the mistakes that baby boomers frequently make is to assume their children are more like them than they are.” – Michael Skapinker, Financial Times, 11.23.09

One of the recurring themes of this blog is that boomer marketers can get it very wrong if they assume Millennials are like them. When I talk to boomers about Millennials, I always first ask whether or not they have Millennial-age children. If yes, we have an immediate understanding. If no, the conversation needs to start in an entirely different place, as I learned last spring at the CMO Club in New York (“Message to Millennials: Many CMOs Think You Are Like Them“).  

Last week I had the pleasure of speaking with Michael Skapinker, editor and columnist for the Financial Times. Michael has Millennial-age kids of his own and also teaches journalism to teens so we leapt to the same page right away. We agreed that while boomers and Gen Y may seem alike, there are significant differences.

Michael used the London 2012 Olympics logo to make his point about the perils of misreading Millennials. When the logo was unveiled in 2007, the brand firm  who developed it said that it was created to appeal to ‘the irreverent, technology loving young’. Nothing wrong with that. The problem? Skapinker’s students universally loathe the logo. “Whoever designed it must have been drunk,” is a frequent comment. When he tells students the logo was specifically aimed at their generation, they become “incandescent. They feel patronised, condescended to, insulted.”  The designers’ mistake? Assuming they know what young people like and want.

It’s an easy mistake to make. On the surface, Millennials and boomers seem to have much in common. They like each other. They both value family, tolerance and diversity. They have sophisticated tastes and often share a passion for the same music, movies and books. So even when they don’t see eye to eye on social issues (see chart from Pew), they find ways to bridge the gap and get along. In the workplace, Millennials and boomers often get along better with each other than they do with Gen X’ers.

But look a little deeper and it’s clear there are real differences between the generations. One of those differences is in the way they learn and absorb information (like logos). 

Millennials are wired to take in a lot of data very quickly. They are visual learners. Where words are everything to our generation, Millennials take in words as part of an overall design. They respond to both what is said and how it is presented. For Millennials, Facebook is as much about the faces as it is about the book. If the presentation is not well-designed, they will have less respect for the content– assuming they read it at all.  Gen Y blogs look fabulous, and they spend a great deal of time debating templates and layouts. This is more than just skill, it is how they communicate.

A few months ago, we had the pleasure of working with the marketers at Vogue to understand how different age groups relate to the magazine. We shared the same pages with Millennials, Gen X’ers and boomers and asked the same question of each group – what do you notice? what do you think about it? do you relate to this?  Millennials were highly attuned to the visual details of each page. They used words like ‘layout’, ‘font’ and ‘design’. They noticed tiny details and commented on them. They adore Vogue’s sophisticated design and are familiar with the photographers. In contrast, the older groups were more likely to comment on what was being said and the quality of the writing.

Based on this research, I decided to take a closer look at the marketing textbook I use to teach sophomores at University of Notre Dame. One of the biggest challenges of teaching is getting students to do the reading. My usual text is current and colorful, but text heavy. There are lots of call outs, text boxes and captions. There are closing and ending chapter materials, suggestions for further reading. I like it a lot, but I know that my students do not. They find it a chore.

So I started looking around and found South-Western Cenage Learning . The book, MKTG3, repackages 90% of the same material in a more Millennial-friendly format based on research with students themselves (what a concept!). The core principles are all still there, but it is a much more inviting read. The extra resources have all been moved online. The students will like the softback cover and price too, just $55.

In the Financial Times article Skapinker wrote following our conversation, he extends this logic into the courtroom:

“Others have noticed a difference in the generation. Lord Judge, the lord chief justice of England and Wales, said recently the way juries recieved information might need to change. Lawyers might have to provide evidence on screens so that jurors could download it. “If a generation is going to arrive in the jury box that is totally unused to sitting and listening, but is using technology to gain the information it needs to form a judgment, that changes the whole orality tradition with which we are familiar.”

Skapinker concludes the article by saying some do manage to sell to the young with words (JK Rowling!), but a surer approach to success is to “develop a deep understanding of their market. Those who fancy themselves as being down with the kids often do not (succeed)”.

Sounds like basic ‘Principles of Marketing’ to me….

The new Next Great Generation blog is written for, by and about Gen Y. As a non-Millennial, I was flattered when site founder, Edward Bocches,  invited me to answer a few questions about marketers are interested in Gen Y for the “interview” section of the blog. Here are the questions and my responses.

TNGG: How long have you been covering and researching Millennials?

CP: The first Millennials were college sophomores about 2002. That’s when I started teaching marketing at Notre Dame. You would have to be blind not to notice they were different. I wrote my first article about this generation in 2007, and started blogging  in 2008. At the time, not much had been written about them. Now, it’s a flood.

TNGG: Is there that much to know about them?

CP: Sure. Eighty million people are worth talking about. The question is whether the differences are simply age-related or whether this generation represents something new? Sometimes it’s hard to know the difference. That subtle distinction, the generational difference, is what most interests me. For instance, are Millennials drinking less regular beer and drinking more wine and craft beers because they are growing up or because of a generational shift in tastes and sophistication? I think the latter, but it can be hard to tell.

TNGG: Why is that marketers are so interested in this generation?

CP: The oldest are now 29. They’ve moved out of the classroom and into the workforce, have incomes and are important targets for a lot of consumer goods and services. Marketers are always interested in young adults because they represent the future market. Loyalties formed now will inform their future choices. But there’s more to it than ‘youth-marketing-as- usual’. Millennials are the first generation to have grown up digitally, to not rebel against their parents and to have unprecedented tools for self-expression.  The magnitude of the current ‘generation gap’ is something that we probably won’t see again as marketers for a very long time.

TTNG: There are a lot of stereotypes about Gen Y: entitled, apathetic, disloyal.  Are there any truths in this?

CP: Of course there is some truth, but it’s a matter of perspective. Where one person sees entitlement, another sees self-confidence. Where one sees laziness, another sees a desire for efficiency. Where one sees disloyalty, another sees a desire for diverse experiences. There’s a flip side to each negative. Over time, I think that the positives will be more apparent.

TTNG: There’s also a sense that every single Millennial is techno-savvy.  Are they all truly digital?

CP: No, not all. There seems to be a dividing line around the birth year 1990. Those that came after grew up more digitally-adept than the earliest Millennials. Even among those born after 1990, some are simply less interested in using the web beyond the basic tools. Those that are interested are truly expert. The professional appearance of my students’ work often blows me away.

TTNG: What’s the most surprising characteristic of this generation?

CP: Their creativity and lack of cynicism. They don’t even realize how special that is. Obama did realize it early on, and that’s why he’s in the White House.

Do you think that Millennials will be as acquisitive as previous generations?  Will they buy as much stuff?

CP: No, I don’t for two reasons. First they are likely to be the first generation that isn’t as affluent as their parents. They are worried about this, very worried. But I think it will cause them to reevaluate what it means to be successful.  I also think we are seeing that Gen Y values experiences over things. They don’t aspire to have a McMansion of their own, to have the latest car or any car if they can help it. What they do want to do is travel, eat out, and nurture their passions.  Product marketers need to find ways to add services and experiences to their brands to engage Millennials. Apple is a master at this. Service marketers need to find ways to keep their experiences meaningful and exciting. When I teach marketing now, I focus more on services than products. It’s the future of marketing.

TTNG: Some older generations joke that Millennials actually bring their parents to their job interviews. I’ve never witnessed that, but if so, isn’t it the parent who’s to blame?

CP: Boomer parents have lead a child-centric life for so long, it’s hard to stop. I’ve had parents dispute grades for their sophomore students. It’s absurd. Millennials need to help their parents pull back. The problem is not the parents but the Millennials that enable this kind of behavior.

TTNG: Boomers brought sexual liberation, rock and roll and a distrust of authority to much of society. What do we think Millennials will or are bringing to pop culture?

CP: Great question. There’s evidence to suggest they will bring a greater sense of social responsibility. The “Next Great Generation” expectation is based on a theory of the ‘fourth turning’ that predicts Millennials will be more civically oriented. I think there is evidence to suggest that is true in values, if not always in behavior. The recession is a wild card; Millennials may not be able to fully live their values. I worry about the drag of college debt and national debt on their aspirations.

TTNG: This is a tough time to graduate and enter the work force, or even get secure in a career.  Do Millennials have any traits that will fare them well in this recession?

CP: Creativity and entrepreneurship. Many who can’t find jobs are creating them.

TNGG: What do your clients want to know about this generation more than anything else?

CP: “How can I reach them?” This is the question I hear most often. Gen Y has so many filters it’s hard to know the best way to break through.

(For TNGG readers’ responses to this question, see comments: TNGG’s The Question, “What a brand has to do to connect with Gen Y“)

TNGG: Would you rather have grown up a boomer, or would you like to go back in time and be a Millennial?

CP: A Millennial growing up in the 60’s and 70’s as I did would be incredibly frustrated. Parents were very different (just watch Mad Men and you’ll know what I mean). Believe me, no one helped me with my homework or toted me around to lessons. What I am trying to do now is resist my boomer tendencies and think more like a Millennial. I am a Millennial-wanna-be. I have a long way to go. Perhaps I need body-art?

TNGG: If you could get them to answer any question at all, what would it be?

As a professional market researcher and brand strategist, my biggest questions are about their brand relationships. Why aren’t there more Millennial-specific iconic brands? Even though they are so different, they like the same iconic brands as everyone else – Vogue, Apple, Coke, Nike, Coach, Trader Joe’s. That’s curious to me. I think it has to do with ‘authenticity’ but that word is overused. Can you help me understand this?

Source: APA, 2009 Millennials (18 – 30-year-olds), Gen Xers (31 – 44-year-olds), Boomers (45 – 63-year-olds), and Matures (64 years and

If any group should know something about stress, it is the American Psychological Association.  For the last two years, they have been researching the sources and impact of stress on different groups of Americans. Recently they released their latest survey data. (Click here to download the report, Stress in America 2009)

A total of 1568 adults were interviewed last July, including 501 Millennials. (BTW, I was gratified to see that they break out their data by generations, and even label the 18-30 generation ‘Millennials’. Perhaps this term will win over the ubiquitous Gen Y after all?)

The findings show generational differences in nearly every area – amount of stress, symptoms of stress and causes of stress. 

Overall, nearly a quarter of Americans (24%) report experiencing high stress levels in the past month (8, 9, or 10 on a 10-point scale); 42% perceive that their stress level is on the rise.  (This figure is actually lower than the 47% who reported rising stress last year so perhaps that is progress?)  Half of all adults (51%) report moderate stress.

The top five causes of stress (in order of importance) for all adults are 1) money 2) work  3) economy 4) family responsibilities and 5) relationships.  So far, no surprises, but here’s where it gets interesting: Millennials are more likely to see money as a stressor, but less likely to attribute their stress to the economy than older groups. It seems they put these two factors into different categories. Millennials are also more likely to be experiencing stress due to relationships.

The generations also experience stress differently. Millennials and Gen X are much more likely to report suffering from stress-related headaches. 43% of Millennials and 41% of Gen X’ers say they experience headaches from stress, while only 31% of Boomers do.

What does this mean for marketers? Marketers cannot assume that Millennials respond to the recession the same way everyone else does.  They are more focused on their immediate situations (money, relationships) than global economic issues. 

The Millennials I know are very concerned about making ends meet, and less concerned with their long-term future.  They are young and after all, tomorrow still  is another day.  Messages that show sympathy for their immediate concerns are more likely to resonate. Help saving money and ideas about new ways of making money or finding a job today are deeply appreciated. Mostly they need jobs and internships or experiences that provide for the basics. Companies and brands that show they understand Gen Y’s ’pain’ are more likely to be noticed and earn their respect.

Recently, my 15 year old son told me he liked the Levi’s ‘Go Forth’ campaign featuring Walt Whitman’s poem ‘O Pioneers’. He went on to add that he didn’t think it made him want to ‘go forth’ and buy Levi’s jeans, a brand he considers hopelessly passe.  Nevertheless, I was surprised to hear he even liked the ads; most of the ads he likes are funny. ’Likeability’ is one of the two most important elements of advertising effectiveness, so I consider that a ‘win’ for Levi’s, although they still have a ways to go on ‘relevance’ to reach to my son.

Bob Garfield reached the same conclusion when he reviewed the Go Forth campaign for Ad Age last July, “Levi’s Target Unlikely to Go Forth and Buy“. 

Reaching teens and other Millennial-age young adults through traditional advertising approaches has proven to be difficult. Not only do they have mental and physical filters to avoid seeing ads in the first place, they are highly critical of the ads they do see.

According to Dan Coates, President of the youth marketing firm YPulse, Gen Y is becoming less receptive to advertising as time goes by – even when they notice the ads, they don’t act upon them. Traditional advertising simply ‘washes over’ them. What’s even worse, when advertising invades previously ad-free online spaces, it breeds hostility.

Whether the imperviousness and hostility demonstrated by Gen Y reflects attitudes that are ‘jaded’ or ‘sophisticated’  is irrelevant: the question for marketers is how to break through? According to YPulses’ research among collegians, reported last week by Mediapost, humor, music, and straightforward simple messages are most likely to catch their attention and motivate them.

• If you ask youth to describe their favorite advertisement, the majority of what they describe is a television ad that made them laugh. Humor means a lot to youth, and they appreciate anything that tickles their funny bone. Unfortunately, being funny isn’t easy, and we’ve frequently measured ad campaigns that tried in vain to elicit a chuckle.   
• While humor, catchy music and practical product benefits seems straightforward enough, we were surprised to hear from youth how effective event sponsorships and pre-movie advertisements are in capturing their attention. Both of these advertising environments significantly reduce the clutter of competing messages, attaching themselves to experiences that are both meaningful and relevant to youth.  
• Good music is the next most appealing advertising element for youth and, luckily, this is an advertising device that is much easier to deliver upon. Apple’s catchy iTunes ads set the standard for how to leverage music to generate receptivity amongst youth.
• This generation is very practical and appreciates advertising that discards hyperbole in favor of clear and simple product information. Similar to the GI generation, which was exposed to the early television advertising of P&G, Gen Y has swapped the Swedish accent of Folger’s kindly Miss Olson with the raspy ranting of the recently departed pitchman Billy Mays.

The Gen Y  blog, TheNextGreatGeneration.com, posed this question today to its readers:  ‘What does a brand have to do to connect with our generation?’ Many of the responses echo the same advice about relevance, humor and music. Many go on to add that it is important to engage them beyond the advertising with interactivity. Here are a few examples:

Emily Purdie: Regardless of the media used, the message has to be personally relevant on some level to make people stop, listen, and care. VW did a great job a few years with the “All Grown Up. Sort of.” campaign for Jetta, featuring 20-somethings who were figuring out how to balance careers and adulthood with fun and youthfulness. The car was offered up as the perfect vehicle to help us tread that line. And the TV spots had some great music, too.

 Zoe I think it depends on the brand, really. For instance, Apple has our sense of humor figured out draws us in that way…

 Scott: It has to go above in beyond in engaging us, as we are resistant to traditional marketing. Host a contest, make us laugh, anything that will get us involved. Develop a kick ass Facebook page. Make sure your brand has personality to it, and be authentic, or you’ll wonder if you are laughed at versus being laughed with. Lastly I would say that as a generation we are very distrustful of the motives of large organizations and institutions, so win us over first before pitching your wares.

Dylan I think the main problem is this idea of *making* us care, as if it was a matter of force. Persuasion is not an art of push and pull, rather, an art of attraction and eventual seduction. The most top of mind brand fitting this concept would be the Nintendo Wii.

Is Colbert a brand icon for Gen Y?

I was recently asked, “what question would I most want to ask Millennials?” 

 As a professional market researcher (my ‘real’ job is President of Brand Amplitude, a market research and consulting firm) that’s easy to answer: my biggest question is how they relate to brands. 

More specifically, I am curious why there aren’t more Millennial-specific ‘iconic’ brands? Gen Y likes pretty much the same brands everyone likes — Coca-Cola, Apple, Trader Joe’s, Nike, Vogue, Facebook, Google, Zappos, etc. 

Brands are relationships. If Millennials are really different from the rest of us, shouldn’t they want, even demand, their owniconic  brands?

Let me first define what I mean by ‘brand icon’. Doug Holt’s terrific book, How Brands Become Icons, says brands are the consequence of successful ‘mythmaking’. Iconic brands are durable because their myths transcend prevailing fads and tap into something more enduring. But myths need to be updated. Brands that endure for decades find ways to make their myths relevant to the cultural conversations of the day. This is what is meant by successful ‘brand stewardship’.

Cultural icons are exemplary symbols that people accept as shorthand to represent important ideas. The crux of iconicity is that the person or the thing is widely regarded as the most compelling symbol of a set of ideas or values that a society deems important. Icons come to represent a particular kind of story — an identity myth — that their consumers use to address identity desires and anxieties. Icons have extraordinary value because they carry a heavy symbolic load for their most enthusiastic consumers. – Doug Holt, How Brands Become Icons

By this standard, very few brands, if any, qualify as ‘icons’ for Millennials.  The  commercial product brand closest to being an icon would probably be Apple.  Apple has managed with its brilliant PCGuy-MacGuy spots, experiential retail stores and astonishing history of relevant innovation to represent the values of the Millennial generation. Studies have shown most Millennials identifywith Mac Guy. Today’s Wall Street Journal blog, Digits, features an article titled, “Apple’s Significant Store Strategy“. Apple is slated to open as many as 40 more stores this year. It just opened its fourth New York location and has been overwhelmed with applications to work there; nearly 10,000 people submitted applications for 220 positions. From the beginning Apple viewed stores and the Genius Bar as an extension of its brand strategy. Today their biggest problem is that they can’t build enough of them or big enough to satisfy the demand.

The only other brands I can think of that meet Holts’ qualification for iconic status for Gen Y are people brands.  Millennials famously projected their hopes and optimism onto Barack Obama (and his marriage with Michelle), which made him a generational icon.  Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert could easily become iconic, if they aren’t already.  A thoughtful brandchannel post explains how Colbert has ‘mastered TV2.0′, involving his audiences in ‘stunts’ that increase their engagement with Brand Colbert. They go so ar as to cal lhim a ‘branding genius’.

The Emmy- and Peabody-winning satirist, author of I Am America (And So Can You!), has a cult following for a reason. His blend of over-the-top caricature and pastiche is the sugar that makes the medicine go down. His biggest stunts — shaving his head while broadcasting from Iraq; running for president in 2007 in his home state of South Carolina (“First to Secede. First to Succeed!”); his mock tribute to George Bush at the 2006 White House Correspondents dinner — are what reaches the wider audience. But what really makes Colbert popular, and wherein lies his branding genius, is that he is a master practitioner of TV 2.0: broadcasting that engages his own audience as participants in his stunts.

For example, using his show, Colbert motivated his “Colbert Nation” to swarm online polls and vote to rename a bridge in Hungary as The Stephen Colbert Bridge, or to name part of a NASA space module “Colbert.” (It was the toilet. Both were successful.)

He called on viewers to toy with Wikipedia, and launched a Star Wars green screen challenge in which his audience uploaded videos into which they had edited themselves, eventually enlisting George Lucas himself.

These stunts engage Colbert’s audience and makes them feel like they are a genuine part of the show. Each victory is lauded by Colbert on air, which embraces his audience. In the end, the audience feels as if it is a genuine part of the Colbert brand, which of course it is.

Colbert latest audience-engaging brand-expanding stunt? To sponsor the U.S. speed skating team. No joke. Colbert is pushing fans to donate online so that the United States speed skating team ends up wearing Colbert-branded uniforms during competition.

Brand marketers aspiring to be iconic Millennial brands could do well to study, Obama, Stewart and Colbert. These celebrities have endeared themselves by tapping into the zeitgeist of Millennial values and myths. 

This week, Miracle Whip brought attention to its ‘We-will-not be ignored’ Millennial-targeted campaign by smartly leveraging Colbert’s recent attacks (mayo should be slathered not slandered). Miracle Whip sent a funny letter to Colbert (“Mr. Colbert, we found your attacks a little harsh, occasionally funny and at times wholly inacurate – our target is 18-35 not 34″)  and purchased commercial time on his show.  

What brands do you think have the potential to be icons for Gen Y?  Why aren’t there more already?

Some Senior!

Charlie (not his real name) is in the class of 2010 at a prestigious high school in Los Angeles. His grades are mostly A’s with some B’s.  He excels at languages (yes, multiple), is athletic, and is musically talented. He has an Imelda-size collection of size 13 sneakers that serves as his ‘photo album’. He was moved by his experience on a short term mission trip to Peru to aspire to be in medicine and make a difference in the world. In short, he’s an interesting young man headed for a top notch college –  in other words, every parent’s (and marketer’s) dream. 

Like most Millennials 18 and under, Charlie likes to spend time online. According to Nielsen, the average teenager spends about 11 hours a month online, much less than the 29 hours adults spend, but still high considering they are less likely to be sitting in front of a computer all day for work.  There is also mounting evidence that younger Millennials are less avid users of social media to stay in touch with friends, preferring to use text messaging and IM to Facebook or MySpace.  (The average teen sends over 740 text messages a month.)

What does Charlie’s Web look like? Well, on my last trip to California I asked him for a tour. I was already familiar with some of the sites he likes, including humor sites like CollegeHumor.com , Onion.com, TextsfromLastNight.com, FailBlog.com and FMyLife. He also shared a few sites I hadn’t heard of before.  Here are a few of the sites he shared with me. They fall into two general categories, humor and music:

HUMOR

TodaysBigThing.com: Billed as the “Awesomest Thing on the Web”, it is what it says, an edited collection of the best videos from other humor sites. I especially enjoyed “Bat Prank”, “What Your Cats Do While You are at Work”, and “What to Do on a Date” (hilarious retracking of a fifties educational video).  Other tabs take you to entertainment videos like a montage of the title line from dozens of movies, sports videos, technology, music, animals, etc.  According to Alexa, traffic skews heavily male 18-24, the average time spent on the site is over 5 minutes.

Break.com Funnyvideos of people breaking things, mostly themselves. The first six titles include: “E[ic Parkour fail Compilation”, “Skater crushing his nuts on a rail”, “Brutal hockey check knocks out player”, “Karate mater flips over plane”, “Unconscious guy gets humped by dog” and “Brazilian guy loses bike and slams into post”. You get the idea. There is a channel just for ‘epic falls’ (“Guy loses pants during wedding”). Break also skews heavily to young men under 24, but gets more traffic than TodayBigThing, ranking among the top 500 sites on the web.

Thefuckingweather.com Exactly what it says, the ……..weather with (ahem) commentary.

mylife isaverage.com Like FMyLife.com only less dramatic and very entertaining. Sample: “Today, a customer by the name of Victor Krumm called my work. Hesitantly, I asked him if he was familiar with Harry Potter. There was a pause, then he said in a worried, hushed tone, “Damn! The muggles know!” And hung up. I still don’t know what he was calling for originally. MLIA.” 

isittoday.com Hard to explain, just try it.

funnyordie.com More funny videos, you can watch the top picks or vote on your own. Currently popular? “We Are Douchebags” (from Douchebag Solidarity – “A reclaimed word is a word in a language that was at one time a pejorative but has been brought back into acceptable usage.” According to Alexa, FunnyOrDie.com skews heavily male as well, but has a slightly older profile – 18-34 – and more college age viewers than the sites above. 

r33b.net  The Hypnotoad. That’s it. That’s all there is. (Hint: Turn your speakers down before clicking)

MUSIC

Kurt Hugo Schneider videos: Don’t Stop Believin’ and Michael Jackson Medley (Sam Tsui sings all the parts a capella in both of these videos, wow!).  College Musical episodes 1-5 also features Sam Tsui singing “I Want to Bone My TA”, very good!).

The Lonely Island videos:  I’m On A Boat, Like a Boss, Jizz in My Pants

What does this tell us? Young men love funny videos of all kinds, and they don’t rely just on YouTube to find them.  It’s easy to become overly focused on the big three social media sites, but for marketers hoping to make a video go ‘viral’ with young men, there are other places that may be just as important.

My family experienced a mini-crisis last Friday when my son forgot to bring a bag of Halloween candy to school.  Naturally, he called me to bail him out.  I admit I nearly headed over to Walgreen’s and then up to school, but in the end decided not to.

It was a hard call; the mistake will cost him in an honors class where he dearly needs the points.  According to a new book I’m reading, How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer, I did the right thing by declining to rescue him.  There is a lot of research that says we learn more from our mistakes than our successes: “Mistakes aren’t things to be discouraged. On the contrary, they should be cultivated and carefully investigated.” (p. 51).  Apparently it’s not practice that makes perfect, it’s experience and analysis of one’s mistakes that provides the critical emotional response that allows experts to make the right calls consistently.

Much has been made of the fact that Millennials have been one of the most praised and encouraged generations in history. Yet, according to Lehrer, there is evidence that too much praise, or at least of the wrong kind of praise, can actually be detrimental to learning.  A series of experiments among four hundred New York City fifth-graders by Carol Dweck, a Stanford psychologist, dramatically illustrates the impact of praise on learning.  The group was randomly divided in half. The only difference between the two groups was a single sentence of praise they received after the first task. The impact of that one sentence was felt vividly across three phases of the research.  

Phase I: Praise affects how much challenge children choose to take on

One at a time , the kids were removed from class and given a relatively easy test consisting of nonverbal puzzles. After the child finished the test, the resarchers told the student his or her score and provided a single sentence of praise. Half of the kids were praised for the intelligence. “You must be smart at this,” the researcher said. The other students were praised for their effort: “You must have worked really hard.” The students were then allowed to choose between two different subsequent tests. The first choice was described as a more difficult set of puzzles, but the kids were told that they’d learn a lot from attempting it. The other option was an easy test, similar to the test they’d just taken…. The type of compliment given to the fifth-graders dramatically influenced their choice of tests. Of the group of kids that had been praised for the efforts, 90 percent chose the harder set of puzzles. However, of the kids that were praised for their intelligence, most went for the easier test.

Phase 2: Fear of failure impacts the ability to learn from mistakes

The same fifth graders were given a test designed to be extremely difficult — it was originally written for eight-graders. The students who had been praised for their efforts in the initial test worked hard at figuring out the puzzles. “They got very involved,” Dweck says. “Many of them remarked, unprovoked, ‘This is my favorite test.’” Kids that had initially been praised for their smarts, on the other hand, were easily discouraged. Their inevitable mistakes were seen as signs of failure: perhaps they really weren’t smart after all. After taking this difficult test, the two groups of students had to choose between looking at the exams of kids who did worse than them and looking at the exams of those who did better. Students praised for their intelligence almsot always chose to bolster their self-esteem by comparing themselves with students who had performed worse on the test. In contrast, kids praised for their hard work were more interested in the higher-scoring exams. They wanted to understand their mistakes, to learn from the errors, to figure out how to do better.

Phase III: Kids who learned from mistakes outperformed those who didn’t

 The final round of tests was the same diffiulty level as the initial test. Nevertheless, students who’d been praised for their efforts exhibited significant improvement, raising their average score by 80 percent. The students who’d been randomly assigned to the ‘smart’ group saw their scores drop by an average of nearly 20 percent. The experience of failure had been so discouraging for the ‘smart’  kids that they actually regressed.

I know it took a while to read all that, but the point is that the impact of praise is remarkably potent and subtle. “When we praise children for their intelligence,” Dweck wrote, “we tell them that this is the name of the game: Look smart, don’t risk making mistakes.” Now multiply that across many tasks and tests and you can see how well meaning parents in an attempt to help their children could impact an entire generation.

 I see my kids and my students struggle with the need to be perfect, to live up to expectations, to not fail. They have been so used to succeeding, that failing at something important takes on outsized signficance. How many students have I seen close to tears over a B+?  Too many. Millennials need to start seeing failure as a way to get better, the way all experts become that way.  

Sam Davidson, a Millennial and one of the people behind the organization, Cool People Care, recently wrote this entry on Brazen Careerist.I wish more Millennials felt the same.

Not meeting expectations (ours or theirs) in any world (business or personal) looks like (on paper) a whopping failure. Close is good, but in many cases for many people, it doesn’t count. At least not like succeeding does. Therefore, we need to be careful to define failure for ourselves.  We need to realize when we didn’t accomplish something and be motivated to try better next time. But we also need to realize that attempting something great is worthy of respect, and falling short is proof that you fought.

Marlo Thomas as Ann Marie

Ask any woman in her 50′s who she wanted to be when she was older and you will hear “That Girl!”

From 1966 to 1971, Marlo Thomas played an appealingly goofy young aspiring actress named Ann Marie. She had cute clothes, a cute apartment, six layers of eyelashes and a cute boyfriend named Donald who was supportive but not pushy. We all wanted to be Ann Marie. Interestingly, we really weren’t  interested in Marlo Thomas. In fact, Thomas took care to hide her identity behind the character. Although Thomas was the show’s executive producer as head of Daisy Productions, she kept her executive status a secret and did not appear in the credits as executive producer.

Little did we know that Thomas’ story was even more appealing than her character’s. Thomas actually was That Girl.  She owned the company that created and produced the show, in an era and an industry dominated by white males. In fact, the show itself was her idea. “There were no young girls on television at the time,” she remembers thinking. So she proposed a new show about a young woman like her, who wanted to be an actress but whose parents just wanted to see get married “a girl with a dream who really wants something.” (When the ABC executives) wanted Ann and Donald to get married in the final episode, Thomas refused. “I felt that would be unfair to the girls who’d watched us and believed in us. I felt that one show had to not end in a wedding.”

Times have changed. Now it’s difficult to find many positive, aspirational  characters on television, although it’s easy to find negative ones.Here’s a list of the 10 worst female role models on TV. Commonsense also provides a list of the 10 Worst TV Role Models.  I don’t think these fictional people are terribly damaging as their characters are more stereotypes than real. Still I wish there were more positive characters to balance them out.

Another way things have changed is that young people today are more likely to identify with the celebrity actor than the character they portray.  Are young women more interested in being Carrie Bradshaw or Sarah Jessica Parker? Hannah Montana or Miley Cyrus? Liz Lemon or Tina Fey?  In each case, the celebrity outshines the character. 

A October 22 TIME magazine article describes how the Disney star-creation ’factory’  uses this insight to turn out legions of teen celebs. Also leveraging this insight, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert created personas rather than characters. (I only know of one instance when Colbert gave an interview out of character, an interview with Terry Gross on NPR). These celebrities literally are their characters and as a result, actually are role models for young people. Who doesn’t admire Jon Stewart?

I am a fan of the new Fox show, Glee. According to the high school student authored blog, Academic Perspective, Glee  features a group of “Gleeks”, a term that is gaining popularity:

The “Gleeks,” a portmanteau of the word “Glee” and “geek,” are gaining in number every week with each new episode of the admittedly adorable FOX television show “Glee” . In this show, a motley crew of diverse teenagers from every background comes together over song and dance while learning about themselves, love, and life.

Lea Michele as Glee's Rachel Berry

In a recent essay, J. Maureen Henderson suggests that the character Rachel Berry (played by actress Lea Michele) may actually be a ‘damn fine role model‘.   According to Henderson, Rachel “rings true as complicated young woman who knows exactly who she is, but still struggles to balance meeting her own self-imposed type-A expectations with her desire for peer acceptance and friendship.” She goes on to say ” TV and especially young women who watch TV need more Rachel Berrys to relate to.” Here’s why:

“How utterly refreshing  is it to see a young female primetime character whose entire focus or major story arc doesn’t revolve around relationship drama and/or getting/keeping/deceiving/ditching a boy? Sure, Rachel pines for the sweetly dumb Finn, but she’s pragmatically resigned to his current status as Quinn’s baby daddy-to-be. And Rachel has bigger fish to fry anyway. She’s convinced that she’s going to be a star and damned if girl doesn’t have the ambition, confidence and straight-up vocal chops to back up her Broadway dreams.”

That sounds a lot like Thomas’ Ann Marie. I love Rachel Berry, too. I didn’t realize why until I read Henderson’s essay: Rachel is That Girl! updated for the Millennial generation.