Was the Featherbone Parlor a forerunner of NikeTown and the Apple Store?

There’s a myth that Millennials don’t like marketing and are indifferent to brands.

The reality is, as my friend Rishad Tobaccowala reminded me last week, that Millennials are ‘besotted with brands‘.  While that may seem like a strong choice of words, he isn’t far off the mark. It’s easy to engage a Millennial in a conversation about brands.  They love to talk about what their favorite brands are doing, as the buzz about Old Spice Guy and Nike’s World Cup marketing attests.  They understand the ‘language’ of brands and the role they play in communicating about culture. And many choose to friend or follow their favorite brands in social media so they can stay up to date on the latest news or provide their feedback. Insider information about brands is strong social currency.

What Millennials actually dislike is interruptive advertising.

This is traditional advertising that is designed to appear everywhere and anywhere, irregardless of context, without personalization, with the single goal of gaining awareness and conveying an idea that may or may not have any relevance to the person seeing it at the moment.  This type of advertising is becoming less and less effective because Gen Y (and others) don’t see any reason why they should put up with it and — and don’t.

As marketers look for new ways to engage empowered consumers, ironically they are returning to the origins of marketing.  Marketers are finding ways to add value that may have nothing to do with purchase, but everything to do with making consumer’s lives more informed, more interesting, or more convenient. This is marketing that aims to get noticed, even engaged with, by promising that the marketing itself will improve consumers’ lives.

The book having the greatest impact on my thinking at present is Bob Gilbreath’s, The Next Evolution of Marketing: Marketing with Meaning. Gilbreath points out that there’s nothing new about thinking about brands as offering real service and real value independent of purchase. He points out that David Ogilvy’s first ad for Guinness was a reference guide to selecting oysters. The 100-year-old Michelin guide was originally a travel guide for car owners in France ‘complete with information about auto maintenance, lodging, restrooms, and restaurants’ that created awareness for its tires and emboldened consumers to take to the roads.  Betty Crocker cook books helped consumers try new recipes and gave them confidence in the kitchen.

Gilbreath believes that the answer to today’s challenge of consumer avoidance of ‘interruptive’ marketing tactics is to return to meaningful approaches like these  that connect brands more directly to their target audiences.

I think he’s right. We could learn from these old school marketers. Here’s another example, dating back to the 1880’s. Warren Featherstone was the inventor of the ‘featherbone stay’, a replacement for whalebone stays in corsets created from by-products from the manufacture of feather dusters. Featherstone knew a thing or two about branded utility and community building.

“Featherbone Parlors were established in major cities and fashion shows were held to demonstrate the latest uses of featherbone to customers. With changing fashion styles, Warren kept adding new products and promotional campaigns. Featherbone bustles, bust extenders, featherbone-stiffened fabric, different weights and widths of feather bones, collar and belt foundations were among the new features offered. Promotions included instruction booklets and in 1893 Warren began publishing the Featherbone Magazinette for distribution to dressmakers and retailers plus advertisements in Ladies Home Journal and other women’s magazines. To further reach the home market and dressmaker, Warren patented and market a featherboning attachment for the home sewing machine in 1895. This 3-1/8″ long attachment mounted on the bed of the sewing machine and aided in the insertion of featherbone or stay.” – http://www.fabrics.net/joan905.asp

Think of the ‘featherboning attachment’ as an app and the ‘Featherbone Parlor’ as a 19th Century Apple Store, you can see just how far, or little, we’ve come from those early days.  But there’s more. Warren Featherbone also understood the power of philanthropy. In 1917 he “acted on his vision to help create a better world for future generations by establishing the Warren Featherbone Foundation.” The foundation was intended to establish new methods for everyday people to engage in philanthropy. and led directly to the donation of properties for parklands and wilderness areas in the State of Michigan, known as Warren Dunes State Park and Warren Woods.

As we move from an interruptive model to an engagement model for marketing and brand building, brand strategies will also need to evolve, and perhaps what was old will be new again.

Marketers are investigating the power of  ’branded utility’, ‘community building’, ‘user generated content’ and new forms of ’cause marketing’ as means for adding value and meaning to their brands.

We may look back and see the ‘Mad Men’ era of mass media as the exception, not the rule in the evolution of marketing.

For some great examples of campaigns that made participation the goal, see “Five Fantastic  Campaigns that Put Digital First” by Jim Nichols of Catalyst.

More diverse demographically

More at ease with digital and communications technology

More optimistic outlook

The third difference, ‘optimism’, may be their most defining characteristic Why?  Bcause values ultimately guide and predict behavior.

Pre-recession, study after study in the U.S. and globally, reported that Millennials may be the most optimistic generation to date. And why not? Born into a period of unprecedented prosperity, into child-centric families who regarded children as minor royals, and into a period of exploding technology, Millennials are endowed with an unprecedented sense of empowerment. For these children of the new Millennium, anything is possible.

A fascinating book by Clotaire Rapaille, The Culture Code, describes the power of the American Dream this way: “We’ve built our [American] culture on dreamlike stories that, amazingly, are true.” It is this faith in the possibility of dreams that makes America so influential in the world. Who wouldn’t want to believe that anything is possible, that mistakes are simply ways we learn and precursors to eventual success?

For Millennials, the American Dream is very much alive, even in the midst of the Recession.

Pew Research has been tracking attitudes of Gen X’ers and Gen Y’ers for many years. They recently reported that “Today’s employed young people are actually somewhat more optimistic about their economic future than Gen Xers were when they were young.” (“Millennials Confident. Connected. Open to Change”, February 2010) Even more startling, Pew found the overall level of optimism among Millennials about their personal economic future today is higher than it was in 2006!

“Even though the recession has been hard on young people, it has not dimmed their optimism. About two-thirds of Millennials (68%) say they are not earning enough money to live the kind of life they want. However, within that group the vast majority (88%) say they expect to earn enough in the future to live the good life. That is significantly higher than the percentage of Gen Xers (76%) or Baby Boomers (46%) who share this hopeful view.”

The same pattern holds for their optimism about the overall state of the nation. While their opinion has held steady, dissatisfaction among older consumers means the gap between generations is wider than it’s been in 20 years due, at least in part, to widespread dissatisfaction among those 65 and older.

What does the American dream mean to a Millennial?

This question was asked last week in a fascinating Twitter Chat hosted by a member of our Gen Y Marketers “Super Community”, Chanelle Schneider (aka @writerchanelle and  @genYchat) and co-hosted by J. Maureen Henderson (aka @generationmeh). The discussion evoked 436 tweets from 45 contributors. The responses suggests the concept of ‘dream’ is one that Millennials strongly relate to.

@GenYChat: What ideas or associations does the term “American Dream” conjure up for you?

@tylerdurbin The American Dream is having the freedom to explore any and all opportunities we desire. ‘Nuff said. Chat over.

@josippetrusa: Gen-Y is reinventing it. Gen Y is a generation based on dreams.

@WriterChanelle; American dream is freedom and opportunities

@nahumg: GenY wants to live dream lifestyle now rather workin a lifetime to get it

@tylerdurbin: If we work now can we not have things we want?

@daniellewriter: American dream is meritocracy-if you work hard enough, you cam have it all

@GenerationMeh: Great summation!

@kelly_ashworth: I think we have to fight harder and have more of a plan… opportunity is not there waiting & won’t just fall into place

@GenerationMeh: But what constitutes a “dream lifestyle”?

@josippetrusa: Depends, but gen-y would like a managerial job, a bmw and all the gimmicks of success.

@josippetrusa: The american dream has been changed to exemplify quick success that some have achieved from advances in technology. We are limitless.

@GenerationMeh: Idea of opp, potential & self-sufficiency as the ingredients for success is ingrained in American identity. Source of pride.

Tomorrow: How Gen Y is redefining the meaning of success.

Are Millennials Attention Deficient?

With Millennials, earning attentions can also be the most challenging step in the communications model. Millennials spend their attention the way the rest of us doing money – very carefully. They are accused of having Attention Deficit Disorder. I disagree. They simply have superior Attention Deserving Detectors.

One of the characteristics that separates young adults from less digitally savvy older consumers is their remarkable filters for tuning out information they don’t want to hear.

This category of information includes alarm clocks, due dates, nagging parents, and negative feedback. It also includes advertisements. According to a study by the Participatory Network and Pace’s Lubin school, 81% say ads are not relevant and 36% say they never look at them. The reason is that they perceive advertising to be irrelevant at best, and manipulative at worst. Rebecca Denison, a 20-something social media analyst at Edelman and member of our Super Consumer Gen Y community puts it this way:

“The big thing for me and my friends is that we don’t want to know we’re being marketed to, if that makes sense. We’re smarter than that (or so we think), and we don’t like to be advertised to. It feels like manipulation, so I think a big aspect marketing to Gen Y has to be a lack of manipulation. You have to be really careful that you don’t make it too much like old school marketing because I think that really does turn Gen Y off.”

Information My Way: Customized, Personalized, Contextualized

Millennials don’t attend to banner ads, commercials or radio ads because they prefer to discover or search for information than have it foisted upon them. They are masters at finding the information they want. They also know how to ensure that the information they want is pushed to them. A year ago, I was introduced to NetVibes by a Gen Y’er who assumed I was already using it. They are masters of RSS feeds and bookmarks, Google alerts and customized home pages. As Kristin Dziadul, another Gen Y marketing community member put it, “In the attention economy today, we don’t find information, it finds us”.

This is not to say that ads never work. Of course they do. But with Millennials context and credibility may matter more than message in enabling an ad to breakthrough. A message from a friend or trusted source is far more likely to be attended than a randomly placed ad.

A new joint study by Facebook and Nielsen demonstrated the lift a campaign receives in effectiveness simply by being in a social context. An ad on a homepage enjoys a 10% lift in recall relative to a control group. Put the same ad on a Facebook page with some social context and it enjoys a 16% lift. But the same ad in an organic feed enjoys a 30% lift.

The key to getting attention is to stop waving your hand in the air and start thinking about how to get your brand discovered. Creative brilliance and heavy rotation is no longer enough. With the Millennial audience, attention is less about intrusion than it is hiding in plain sight. Millennials want to believe that they have discovered information for themselves. It’s no accident that the hottest bars, like El Secreto in Sao Paulo, are usually well-kept secrets. What’s the point of knowing about it if everyone else does too?

Fishing Where the Fish Are

‘Being found’ is not easy. It requires a shift in thinking away from message broadcasting to extreme narrowcasting. It also requires more imaginative ways to embed messages into places where they will be welcome.  Ironically though, it may be easier to be ‘found’ on a more obscure digital site or special interest community than on Yahoo.

The top sites for Millennials might surprise you in their degree of specialization. Facebook of course is the number one site for 18-24 year olds, yet it is really is not one site but a Balkanized nation of groups, subgroups and special interests. Bill Tancer of Hitwise provided drill down data on top sites for 18-24 year olds by income, geography and ethnicity. The top sites for 18-24 year olds on an index basis might surprise you. Those with family incomes $150,000 are actually most likely to be found concentrated on sites like DeviantArt, Fanfiction, UrbanChat, OVGuide, ProjectPlaylist,and MathXL.com. Those under $30,000 are most likely to be found on some of those sites but also badoo, zShare.net, mocospace and IMVU.

A New Idea – Search Enabled Discovery

Another way to ensure your ad is ‘welcome’ and ‘hiding in plain sight’ is offered by a company I learned about this week at iMedia, Vibrant Media. Vibrant Media offers a way to provide greater context for brand messages by embedding ads within relevant content. Think of it as search meets social media. Here is how it works. As an online user is reading an article, certain words or terms are highlighted by hypertext links, similar to how they appear in a blog or wiki. When the reader, who is presumably reading this article because it is relevant to them, passes their mouse over these words, an advertisement appears (and disappears as the mouse passes on). The content can be tailored to be relevant to the key word and can offer more than a standard banner; it can be an API, video or demo. For example, BING used Vibrant to demo its search engine. (To see how it works check out my bylined article on iMediaconnection today. Near the bottom of the first page, the word ‘social media’ is hyperlinked to a dynamic search app from imediaconnection that features what else, ‘social media’!).

(This post is the first in a series about digital marketing to Millennials based on a speech given at iMedia Summit, Miami on June 15. Tomorrow: “Who Cares? I is for Interest”)

However, difficult it is, new research from Syncapse suggests that recruiting customers to a Facebook fan page may be a goal worth pursuing. The research shows fans are much more valuable than other users and put a dollar and cents value on the difference.

They concluded,  ”A fan base is a self-segmented group of highly valuable customers“.

Syncapse used a combination of a 4000 member survey  and “in-depth proprietary research and data analyses of two-years available data across millions of interactions, Syncapse was able to compare the worth of a fan relative to non-fans for the top 20 brands on Facebook –Nokia, BlackBerry, Motorola, Secret, Gillette, Axe, Dove, Victoria’s Secret, Adidas, Nike, Coca-Cola, Oreo, Skittles, Nutella, Red Bull, Pringles, Playstation, Xbox, Starbucks, and McDonald’s. Results are broken out by brand and results vary a lot across and even within brands. Yet the overall pattern is clear. They conclude Fans were found to spend more on products, be more loyal, are more likely to recommend the brand to a friend:

Syncapse has observed that an average fan may participate with a brand ten times a year and will make one recommendation. But, an active fan may participate thirty times and make ten recommendations. The impact this has on fan value is quite dramatic. In the case of Coca-Cola, the best case for fan value reaches $316.78 but is $137.84 for an average fan. In the worse case scenario, a fan is worth $0. This degree of variability in the value of a fan must be a major consideration in determining how brands address different types of fans in efforts to move them up the value ladder. In short, the goal must be to reduce fan variability while moving the average fan value to the active end of the range.

Before you can ‘move customers up the ladder’, you have to encourage them to join in the first place.

Research shows that fanning a brand is all about content. 67% join to get news or product updates, 64% to get promotions and 41% to view or download music or videos. This is consistent with research I heard presented yesterday at iMedia Brand Summit by the Online Publisher’s Association (OPA) which indicates online users spend 40% of their time on content.

The second most important reason for friending a brand is to interact with the company or other users.  36% say they friend a brand to ‘submit opinions’ and another 33% say they want to connect with other cusotmers. Again the OPA study confirms this insight – 28% of online users’ time is spent on ‘community’ activities.

While this data is about fans and brands in general, it is especially true of Millennials. Gen Y joins brands to gain social currency (content and offers) and to interact with the company and other fans. Paul Parkin of SALT branding in San Francisco was interviewed recently by MediaPost on the subject of Gen Y and their ‘trust’ for brands. The article was widely tweeted for its insight that Millennials trust ‘channels’ over brands (“Fickle Gen Y Trusts Channels over Brands“). Farther down in the article, he commented on the need for Gen Y to interact.

Q: How important are demographics?

A: In some ways, very. Baby Boomers have one set of expectations of brands, and an idea of what it means to trust them. Gen X is quite different. In many ways, they are the brand generation. They latched onto powerful brands that emerged in the 1980s and ’90s, and if you asked most people in that group to name 10 brands that define them, they could probably do it. Gen Y is completely different — they want to multitask, and are much more into “we,” in the sense of collaboration. They want to interact with companies, and with each other.

This conclusion fits with everything we know about Millennials.  The key to attracting brand friends may be primarily promotions and content, but to retain Gen Y fans, its essential to let them speak out to the company and to each other. A brand fan page is really a platform for a conversation, a modern day ‘salon’. The brand hosts the salon, but if it is wise, will ensure that it’s really more about the guests than about the host.

Readers of this blog may be surprised to hear me advocate for non-age specific branding! Yet the most successful brands are in fact ‘for the ages’.

Study after study of the strongest brands among Gen Y reveal very few that are specifically designed for them — I can think of only a few: Van’s, Herbal Essence. Even Facebook is for everyone now.  Favorite Millennial brands like Apple, Nike, Jet Blue, Trader Joe’s, Coach, Starbucks, and Coca-Cola, to name a few, have multi-generational appeal.

Millennials don’t particularly like brands that overtly go after their specific demographic.  (See earlier blog posts: “Gen Y discusses the iconic brands of their generation” and “Why Aren’t there more iconic Gen Y brands?“) When brands try to act cool, they end up looking like an uninvited guest — out of place and uncomfortable.

We know that reaching a Gen Y target requires a different approach than traditional media and messaging as usual. They are hard to reach, connected, have high expectations of personalization and interactivity and are highly suspicious of any claim to superiority. In contrast, they consider ‘iconic brands’ that have withstood the ‘test of time’ to be uncontrived and authentic. They are more trustworthy.

Marketing to ‘everyone’ is, as every marketing student knows, a recipe for disaster. Gen Y is a special and different target audience. But in a remarkable turnabout, they may in fact be the new mainstream.  There is a remarkable convergence happening, and marketing to Gen Y actually has more resonance with other demos than vice versa. It was not always this way. The youth target traditionally was the ‘niche’, and 25-49 was the mainstream. Now, with Gen Y trends rapidly migrating across demographic lines, what works for youth is  likely to work for older age groups, as well.

Gregg Lipman makes this point quite eloquently in his recent Ad Age article, “What Generation Gap?” (June 4, 2010).

“We see this not only in the video-game world, but also in other brands: moms and daughters with matching Ugg boots, Juicy Couture sweatsuits, Abercrombie hoodies and Coach handbags. Fathers and sons comparing fantasy football rankings on matching iPhones or killing precious productivity hours on YouTube. Teachers and students sipping from matching Starbucks latte cups or ordering the same items from Pinkberry. Moms and daughters rooting feverishly for their favorite “American Idol” contestants or shaking their heads in utter disgust at the shameless and hygienically dubious conduct of the latest batch of “The Real World” participants. Moms and their adults friends, with or without their daughters, attending Jonas Brothers concerts, or standing in line for midnight premiere showings of the brow-furrowing fest that is the “Twilight” franchise. Aunts and nieces perusing the same Kiehl’s or MAC products. Uncles and nephews cracking open cans of Red Bull. Grandparents, parents and their children conversing freely on Facebook or Skype.”

Jonas Brothers? Really? Yet I agree with Lipman’s central argument that brands should aim to transcend age categories, by going after Gen E (Everyone). I also agree with his conclusion about how it should be done –  by focusing on the ever narrowing cultural gap between Millennials and their Gen X and Boomer counterparts.

“These companies [iconic brands] have successfully created branding stories that resonate across a spectrum of ages because they have largely ignored age-based demographic “insights” as they were, and instead focused on harnessing societal (the blurring of the generation/cultural gap) and technological (the desire to be ever more connected) trends to their benefit….Appealing to Generation E requires a massive shift away from the standard “What are they looking for in a product?” to “What does this brand say about me as a person?”"

The key sentence here is the importance of is basing a brand’s appeal on something greater than the product attributes that have traditionaly formed the foundation of brand strategy. Successful brands are becoming more culturally-driven than attribute driven.

Marketing to Gen Y today — and Gen E tomorrow– is more about organizing content and conversations around common interests and passion points than about message points.

This trend has important implications for research and brand strategy.  While traditional research still has a place, there is a greater need for understanding customer interests beyond the category or even ‘lifestyle’.  Social media offers a new way to strategically differentiate a brand and build customer relationships by shifting the focus of the conversation on shared purpose and common cause.  And isn’t that the definition of community, anyway?

Lipman concludes his article by saying “We don’t think that the generation gap will ever totally disappear, and that’s probably a good thing, but in this age of hard-core partisanship, perhaps we as marketers can soften the rhetoric between the generations and create stronger brands at the same time.”

Or said another way, perhaps ‘purpose‘ provides a clue as to how to make a brand ‘ageless‘?

1971 Chrysler Simca = Freedom

I got my driver’s license on my 16th birthday. I promptly purchased a 1971 Chrysler Simca (yes orange although not as dirty as the one in the picture).

That tiny, tinny car was the biggest milestone in my life up to that point. It symbolized adult freedom and adult responsibility.  It wasn’t long before I had a real job and more money than I could make babysitting.

Most of my friends made a similar jump about the same time. In fact, 4 million cars were sold in 1971 and 1972, a record at the time that reflected the demographic bulge of the baby boom.

Today the coming age rite is more likely to be a cell phone than a car. In 1978, over half of all 16 year olds had a driver’s license. By 2008 that figure had dropped to 31%.

Over half of all 12 year-olds had a cell phone in 2009. In fact, one study of 17,000 school children revealed more pupils age 7-16 own a cell phone (85.5%)  than own a book (72.6%)!

It would seem a mobile phone now symbolizes a major adolescent milestone much as a car did for me. The Internet liberates them from being bored, and gives them new vistas. For me, mobility liberated me from hanging out with my family.  I had things to do! Places to go! A car connected me with a wider world, and became the center of my social life.

Tim Stock of scenarioDNA observed in his excellent lecture on how different generations were shaped ( “Culture Networks“), that for Boomers, ‘The Road’ was our network, our ‘information superhighway’.  The open road symbolized rebellion, and spawned countless archetypes.  A long, independent car trip was a rite of passage. I shudder now to think that I drove ALONE from Florida to Michigan at age 18.  Times have definitely changed, and Millennials do not have the same relationship with cars that we did. Mobility has a different meaning. They don’t need to ‘get out and go somewhere’.  They can shop online, download a movie, and connect with their friends without ever leaving their room.

As Stock observes, Gen Y is less concerned about where you go and more concerned with ‘how you transform what is there‘. ZipCar and its competitors seem to be perfectly in tune with this refocus on doing things. My Saturday afternoons were spent cleaning and waxing my car, then driving to the beach to see who else was there.  For Gen Y, it’s not about owning and caring for an incredible car, it’s about getting somewhere so you can experience something incredible.

Many Gen Y’ers actively reject the car-centric culture I grew up with.

Cars are seen as wasteful, status-oriented and ecologically unsound. Riding the bus does not have the same stigma it once did. Hummers have become a symbol of what’s wrong with consumer cultureThe money saved by not owning and operating a car frees up money for other things —  like education, technology and travel. These expderiences are higher priorities for Millennials and are perceived as offering greater return for the money.

Millennials don’t hunger for the latest model or edition.  In fact as a nation, we all appear to be satisfied with driving cars longer and longer.  The media age of vehicles in operation was 9.2 years in 2007. This figure is up from 6.5 years in 1990 and from 5.1 years in 1969. Perhaps we’re moving toward a model where we only buy a new one when the old one costs more to fix than it’s worth, as we do with refrigerators and most other ‘appliances’. The thrill of that new car smell is gone.

Paper & Plastic, Compost or EBay/Craiglist

This is a big adjustment for the automobile companies. But it is also an issue for any marketer of  ’durables,’  ’real estate’ or other big ticket items. According to Mike Doherty, President Cole Weber United, Millennials can be thought of as ‘generation prototype’.  ”For Gen Y, hard goods have soft lifespans.  Durability is relevant but mostly in relation to different products.” Gen Y thinks less about the ‘thing’ and more about the utility of the thing relative to other purchases. He writes in MediaPost last month….

“If you are in the “consumer durables” market, you already know that it’s a label that doesn’t make much sense to Gen Y. For Gen Yers, the consumer durables equation seems to look like this:

Product Lifespan = Adopted + Adapted + Left Behind for the Next Version

To a Gen Yer, durability is often acknowledged as being relevant, but its importance is relative to different products. It’s not too much of an exaggeration to say that there are really three recycling bins in Gen Y homes: Paper ‘n’ Plastic, Compost, and eBay/Craigslist. If Gen Yers are fortunate enough to get their hands on a v1.0 iPad, they will love being one of the first to have one, but they also know that there are more versions to come in a few months, making their hot item quickly feel outdated.”

This may look like ‘fickleness’ but I think it’s more of an indication of their tendency to not become romantically attached to ‘things’.  Gen Y is first and foremost looking for utility and performance. They will switch for a better alternative, without much hesitation.

This practicality and lack of romanticism poses a challenge to durable goods marketers – the lifestyle approaches of the past most likely won’t work. Young adults are more likely to ask the hard questions: “How does it perform relative to alternatives?” and “Why should I buy it at all?”

To activate influencers to talk about your brand, 9 times out of 10, the most effective means is through relevant content, not ads.  According to a Pace University study, 81% of Millennials say social network advertising is ‘not relevant’.  That’s why so many brands have found success by associating with worthy causes, or highlighting their support of environmental or humanitarian initiatives.

Tying social media marketing to a social event is also a smart way to ensure relevance.

After all, what could be more relevant than a party you are attending? It’s real, it’s in the moment and it represents the strongest form of social currency – first hand information.  Little wonder Facebook pages are filled with news of upcoming parties and photos from past parties.

Three marketers who have recently proven to be particularly effective at integrating social media with events are Ford Fiesta and MTV.

Ford Fiesta: (Marketing Daily, June 1)

Ford is leveraging the connection between music lovers and its Fiesta with partnerships and activities that mirror the Fiesta Movement social media campaigns that have been running for a year.  It placed the 2011 model in the 10th annual “Movement: Detroit’s Electronic Music Festival” last weekend in Detroit, and on June 10-13, Ford will highlight the Fiesta as part of its exclusive automotive partnership with the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival.  Bonnaroo takes place on a 700-acre farm in Manchester, TN, is one of the two biggest (with Coachella) rock, jazz, folk and pop music festivals in the U.S., with some 100,000 attendees.

“The target consumers for Fiesta are huge music fans, and our goal is to connect with that community in a fun and meaningful way. We want Fiesta to be a natural part of the scene so that it can be understood. The Fiesta Movement enabled people to discover the car in a natural way while having fun with their friends. We [are doing] the same thing at these music festivals — give people an opportunity to interact with the new Fiesta and let them spread the word to their family and friends.” — Jeff Eggen, Ford Fiesta experiential marketing manager

At the Detroit event, Ford had a venue called “Fiesta Lounge” with music piped live from the main stage and local artists painting Fiestas. At Bonnaroo, Ford will have the “Fiesta Garage,” a ’70s-themed space where performers will hold forth about their processes. The Bonnaroo element is tied to Ford’s Fiesta Movement program. One of the bands that will be at the Garage is the winner of a second-phase Fiesta Movement program, where the “Fiesta Agents” had to choose a musician, DJ and/or band to host concerts in their local community. Ford will also have a fleet of Fiestas at Bonnaroo that will transport staff, VIPs and artists.

MTV 2010 Movie Awards (MMA): (Adweek, May 31)

The 2010 MMA Awards promises to get a little “Raaaaaaaandy.” [Orbit will be] reprising its role as the official sponsor of the Best WTF Moment — the award honors the most jaw-dropping scene from a recent theatrical — the Wrigley gum brand will be incorporated into banter between presenters Aubrey Plaza and Anna Kendrick. In keeping with Orbit’s tag (“Dirty mouth? Clean it up!”), the actresses will present the WTF hardware with a requisite smattering of bleeped-out profanities. As the bit plays out, both network and sponsor hope viewers will take it to the tweets, providing a real-time metacommentary on the event, the brand and the WTF honoree.

“Social media is the telephone and we’re the conversation. Not only do we translate the conversation for our clients, but we’re also finding new ways to leverage these social media tools to further engage with our viewers.”–  Dan Lovinger, svp, MTV sales and integrated marketing

The smart money’s on Ken Jeong for his naked crowbar assault in The Hangover.  Hosted by Aziz Ansari (the comedian stole Judd Apatow’s 2009 flick Funny People with his portrayal of potty-mouth standup Raaaaaaaandy), this year’s MMAs are pumping up the volume on social media. First rolled out for last September’s Video Music Awards, version 2.0 of MTV’s Twitter Visualization platform will allow viewers to monitor tweet activity related to the telecast and the individual performers. For example, should singing pinup girl Katy Perry choose to engage in some particularly outrageous on-screen behavior with her oversexed Brit BF Russell Brand, the site’s graphic interface would reflect the concomitant surge in Perry/Brand-targeted discourse.

While memorable moments aren’t always planned (see Kanye West’s ill-advised cameo during last year’s VMAs), fans generally don’t have to wait long for the first OMFG moment. “A quick strike is critical,” said Stephen Friedman, gm, MTV. “Last year we saw an immediate uptick in Twitter activity after the Brüno moment, and that informed the rest of the night. Our audience is always looking for that galvanizing moment.” As viewers LOL’d over the seemingly unrehearsed meeting between Sacha Baron Cohen’s unswaddled rump and Eminem’s scowling mug, ratings soared. Viewers 12-34 were up 92 percent versus the 2008 show and total viewers improved 78 percent to 5.28 million.

Take for instance the long reach of Coca-Cola’s MMAs commitment. In the spring, Coke partnered with MTV to find an on-air correspondent to act as a liaison between the stars and the audience. The Coca-Cola Movie Awards Insider will prowl the red carpet in search of celeb scoops and posing queries culled from viewer tweets. “This partnership allows us to integrate ‘big event’  TV with social media and event marketing to provide young people access to compelling content,” said Linda Cronin, director, media and interactive, Coca-Cola North America. “Social media helps shape the experience.”

What makes these event meets social media examples so smart is how well they integrate into the event experience, enhancing the moment by making it easy to share it.  In a previous post, “The Benefits of Social Friction” I observed that “social media is not just a way to communicate — communication is only the beginning. Social media is a form of entertainment that offers consumers new ways to literally be together online and even to enhance their analog experiences.”  The reason enhancing social friction is important was pointed out in an even earlier post, “Reconciling Our Digital and Analog Lives“, Gen Y understands that their online personality is just an extension and reflection of their authentic, ‘real’, lives.

Of course, just adding a social media component to an event is no guarantee of positive word of mouth.

The ability to have a discussion during a shared viewing event enhances the viewing, for better and for worse… An attempt by Fox last Fall to integrate tweets into a recast of the pilot episode of Glee was a failure. Likewise, TIME reported with more than a little irony, that an interview with Twitter founder Evan Williams at South By Southwest was wrecked by criticism on Twitter.

“Festival goers were unimpressed with the questions posed to Williams by moderator Umair Haque of the Harvard Business Review and tweeted their displeasure before leaving the interview en masse. In a blog post later, Haque said he wished he had been monitoring the Twitter conversation from on stage.”

A chapter that begins on page 335 of 427 (paperback version not including Appendices and Sources), is titled “Millennial Generation”.

What makes this chapter on Millennials so fascinating twenty years after it was written is how uncannily it matches what we know to be true of how Gen Y is different from preceding generations.

Part of the reason for its accuracy is that the demographics of this generation were fairly predictable, even in 1991, and demographics are one of the forces that shapes generations. Strauss and Howe were able to accurately project the likely size (76 million) and make up (12% immigrant) based on fertility and immigration trends, even though only 33 million of them were alive when the book was published.

The authors were also tuned-in to the major shift in parenting and education as a cultural priority that was already underway by the early 90′s. This shift would prove to have  a remarkable impact on Millennial self-perceptions, aspirations and values. Nearly twenty years ago they noted that “this new generation of children is being treated as precious” and “Boom parents and teachers have also been slowing down the childhood development clock — unlike the Silent, who sped it up.”

“First-wave Millennials are riding a powerful crest of protective concern, dating back to he early 1980s, over the American childhood environment. In 1981, the year before the “Class of 2000″ was born, a volley of books assaulted adult mistreatment of children through the 13er (Gen X) birth years. Within the next couple of years, other authors began reconsidering the human consequences of divorce, latchkey households, and value neutral education.

In 1984, two kids as devils movies flopped at the box office, marketing the end of a dying genre and the start of a more positive film depiction of children.

From 1986 to 1988, polls reported a tripling in the popularity of ‘staying home with family’….In general, Boomer parents are determined to set an unerringly wholesome environment for their Millennial tots.

Where Silent parents had brought 13erkids along to see $-rated movies made about them, Boomers take the Millennials to see G-rated movies made for them.”"

“From 1976 through 1988 the proportion of students held back in elementary school jumped by one-third.”

One of the central tenets of the book is that the fourth generation in each cycle, the “Fourth Turning”, tends to be more civically minded and engaged.  They look for signs that yesterday’s fourth graders might be more evolved as citizens and found it in Anna Quindlen’s observations that kids seemed to be “assimiliating society’s ‘shalt nots’ about crime, drugs, polution and education with disquieting energy and unanimity.” (page 341) Twenty years later, we know from the research that today’s young adults are much more ‘upright’ than earlier generations in terms of their overall optimism, attitudes toward the environment and social action and behavior regarding drug and alcohol use, teen pregnancy, and crime.

What Howe and Strauss could not have known in 1991 was the remarkable impact that technology and the most severe economic recession in over 60 years would play in shaping this generation.

Beyond demographics, two of the forces that are shaping up to be the most influential are easy access to information of all kinds and a realization that America’s high flying lifestyle is most likely unsustainable.  They have already resulted in a more empowered, yet sobered, generation that is exhibiting very different consumer and media behavior as they move into their prime earning years.

BrandAmplitude‘s latest ebook (“How Millennials Are Different“) is focused on spotlighting the ways that Millennials are different from generations that came before at the same age. The book, which zeroes in specifically on longitudinal data from Pew Research and other sources, shows Gen Y is different in many significant ways, only some of which were predictable in 1991.

Nevertheless, what Strauss and Howe foresaw about how Millennials would be different from preceding generations based simply on cultural and demographic trends, they got remarkably right.

The brief answered the question, ‘what is the most motivating thing we can say about this brand’?  The answer was  expressed in words, the fewer words the better.  A one or two word brief was considered the pinnacle of achievement.

Today, the idea of a singular, focused message is under pressure — from media fragmentation, from shorter attention spans and the pressing need for a constant stream of relevant ‘content’. With social media, the idea of a singular message has given way to culturally relevant brand ‘themes.’

After all, saying the same thing over and over, even if you find new ways to say it, makes for a boring conversation.  Marketers are recognizing that they are not in control of the conversation, much less the message.

Now the question for those preparing a brief becomes, “where can the brand make a contribution to the conversations consumers are having or want to have?”  Dove’s Eveolutionwas an early pioneer in this themed approach to branding. By identifying that women don’t think of themselves as attractive and wanted to have a conversation about the meaning of beauty, Unilever’s marketers were able to make Dove more culturally relevant. The message is hard to summarize in words, but is more along the lines of “Dove ‘gets’ you”.

Little wonder taglines are falling into disuse!  Here is Millennial marketer and “super consumer” panel member, Derek Yegan, on the demise of the “Big Idea”:

“As a millennial, I’d say diversity is key. Perhaps marketers need to present several ideas all related to “The Big Idea”. This may require multiple tag lines for multiple demographics and people (doable but difficult to cover all aspects) or maybe a broader “Big Idea” with broader tag lines to target more people. In the end, i think a lot of what will define the successful companies from those that fail are the ideas and values the advertisers have, the tactics the agency employ, the response(s) to the feedback given, and the relevancy of the product.”

Brand themes may or may not have much to do with the brand; they are more likely to reflect consumer interests and areas the brand has permission to talk about. Rather than narrowing the scope (to one word), the idea now is to make the brand platform as broad as possible. The goal is increasing brand ‘ubiquity’. The bigger a brand’s authority (the more subjects it can speak to) the better. Perhaps the ‘ubiquitous’ Virgin brand is not an anomaly after all, but the way of the future in branding?

Not only are messages broadening, they are also becoming subordinate to things like context, placement, and timing. Here’s Millennial panel members, Brian Sweet and Desiree Asena Dundar on how the message is so much more than the words.

“This question becomes even more interesting when you realize the time/place your message is conveyed is also part of the message itself. Does a brand hang out in the environments with which its target consumers identify? If it does, and if it “fits” that environment without seeming out of place, that unspoken message is very possibly more powerful than the overt message. Authenticity is a vital brand attribute that is communicated most effectively through unspoken means.” – Brian Sweet

“Creating a difference in a world full of names is an essential step to be taken by the brands, especially if you are referring to Gen Y. I believe this is why the emphasis that was on brand message has been shifted towards the right time, right place and the right communication tools. As we can see Viral and Guerrilla Marketing tools are widely adopted by many brands in order to create that difference so they can attract more “audiences” or “viewers”. Yet this does not mean that the message sent through these channels will result in higher number of customers. The aim is still to influence purchase decision and generate a link to the brand. I, therefore, think that the brands and marketers should establish a well-balanced relation between the message and the tool, the time and the place that is used to deliver that message.” – Desiree Asena Dunda

Briefs today must move beyond target definition, current belief, key message, and desired belief to identify broader areas of brand interest.

Marketers, especially those who want to reach Gen Y, now have  a better appreciation of the importance of reference groups in creating brand affinity and shaping attitudes. They have to deal with the challenge of moving away from a broadcast to an engagement model of brand communications. And with the advent of mobile phones and geolocation, they know they need to  incorporate a ‘temporal’ and ‘locational’ component to their strategies.

What does your brief look like these days? To keep up with the new communications realities, I recommend a communications brief address these four components:

1.  Audience = deep understanding of not just who they are and how they relate to the category and brand but what they like - cultural interests, important social causes,  key influencers, activities, what they think is funny, what they worry about. You get the idea. More is better.  LISTENING IS CRITICAL.

2. Attention = what can we say that is memorable and will get the brand noticed and talked about?  What can we make, invent or built that will be of value?

3. Action = How can we get people to participate? To share their experience with their friends? Will this deepen their active involvement with the brand, even if it doesn’t lead to purchase?

4. Affinity = It’s not a ‘target’, it’s a potential friend. What can I say or do that suggests I ‘get’ this audience as individuals and I want to know them better?

We are approaching an inflection point in the way that brands and communications are created and implemented.  Consider these shifts:

These are radical shifts. Not that long ago, the process of creating brand communications started with deep research into the consumer’s attitudes and the way they made decisions about the category and the brand.  Agency planners and market researchers labored long and hard to discover a polished diamond or two of ‘insights’ which could be translated into a brand platform and compelling message.

Now, the speed of deploying digital marketing ‘campaigns’ has made research and the strategic development process, if not less important, at least less prominent.

• Mega brands are being built online without THE BIG IDEA or catchy taglines.
• Google, Amazon, and Facebook succeeded by being remarkably useful, not by remarkable advertising.
• Indeed, those that try the old ways are finding they don’t even work that well. (Witness Yahoo’s recent $100 million attempt to resuscitate its brand).

Deep research and immersion are giving way to an iterative process of digital experimentation.

Experimentation makes sense when it costs less to ‘just do it’ than invest in upfront research. Direct mail, in-store programs and commercials are expensive, even before the cost of media placement is factored in.  In contrast, digital media provides a vast experimental laboratory for marketers. Failed ideas are not an embarassment, they are just ignored. The “Your Father’s Oldsmobile” campaign, an epic fail of the early 90’s, wouldn’t have lasted a day in today’s social media environment – it would have been laughed off the social graph and fallen into oblivion.

Who needs a traditional planning process when it costs only a few thousand dollars to create a viral video, embed a tweet or launch a Facebook application that could become the next Coke Open Happiness or Dove Evolution? With so little at stake, at least financially, the potential ROI on new efforts doesn’t justify the upfront investment in exploration. When Office Max developed its ELF Yourself Christmas promotion, it was just one of ten ideas that were deployed. Any one of them could have won.

Research isn’t going away, but it needs to adapt. The future communications planning model will be immersive and concerned with broader themes and contexts, not ‘messsages’.

Although digital campaigns may be less costly, they are not free, especially when one factors in the human capital required to create and execute them.  So there is still a need to reduce risk through research. In a digital model, research will no longer be a protracted upfront process focused on understanding ‘brand perceptions and decision drivers’.  It will no longer be searching for the one, true magical golden insight.

Here is the BBH planner, Heidi Hackemer, from her blog, @uberblond arguing against the idea of a ‘frickin’ insight on a frickin’ pedestal’.

“The traditional brief should die. traditional way: planners go off into their magic black box of thought and perception, ponder the philosophies of society and our world, and then emerge triumphant with the golden insight and magical one true thing. and i get the allure of that, both from the planner feeling like a hero and the creative having the assurance of the safety buoy of a brief. but as i do more immersive brand planning that’s geared for today’s realities, digital and not (which is different than being a “digital strategist”), my role is radically changing.”

Edward Boches, echoes the idea that the brief as we knew it is no longer relevant from the perspective of a creative director in a post on his blog, Creativity Unbound.

“The brief has remained unchanged for years, almost always answering the question, “What do we have to say?” Better to answer questions like, “How will we get this brand talked about?” “What can we create of value?” “How will we get people to participate?” “What can we make, invent, build that’s worthy of being advertised?”Ask those kinds of questions and see what you get back.

Understanding of the user, their interests and lifestyle, will be more important than understanding of their brand perceptions and motivations. As Boches puts it, what matters now is “understanding a customer’s relationship to content, technology and community — not just to a category or even the brand – and finding a way to add something of value.”

In the future, research will also be more embedded in the actual communications development process, with faster turnaround times and iterative experimentation to weed out losers and identify potential wins becoming the norm.

Mike Doherty, President of Cole Weber United, dubs Millennials and its affinity for the latest, greatest idea, “Generation Prototype”. Doherty believes that the best way to ensure products get Millennials attention is to include them in the development process.

“Because Gen Yers personalize everything, they are very comfortable pulling apart (both literally and figuratively) what isn’t working for them, refashioning a different version and presenting it to their comrades in experimentation to see if it flies. This makes Gen Yers great partners for innovation.

One way to engage them is through tools that provide Market Research Online Communities (MROCs). These communities enable consumers to stick their toes into the primordial soup of new products by trying out the latest and greatest and then providing feedback on what works and what doesn’t.

In terms of mobile, we’ve also found surprising success by throwing down the gauntlet of time. Rather than focusing on time, money and whether the idea is worthwhile, consider developing mobile phone applications using a simple “App in a Day” rule. A time constraint can often push teams to develop quickly and cleverly. Risky methodology? Perhaps. Surprising rewards? Absolutely. And at worst you’ve invested two or three days in a great learning experience.”

Introducing ‘Flash Reads’

The approach Doherty advocates for product development is easily adapted for feedback on digital communications.  Access to a standing customer group or database makes it possible to leverage feedback tools in the form of polls, surveys, forums, online focus groups or co-creation groups.  Many companies have these ‘MROC’s’ available.

Brand Amplitude’s Millennial marketing unit is experimenting with a proprietary, standing Market Research community (MROC) (millennialmarketing.org) of our own. Rather than gather a unique random sample for each project, the idea is to have an on-call community composed of Gen  ‘super consumers’ ready to respond to your latest initiative. Each participant is active in social media and either works in or is studying digital marketing, communications or PR. The hand-selected participants were chosen from hundreds of Gen Y bloggers and tweeters for the quality of their ideas and thinking. They have already started actively sharing ideas about brand marketing. Soon, we hope to open up to allow brand marketers to access the community and to introduce focused topics of conversation or concepts for feedback or ‘pre-testing’.

For now the community is private, but if you are interested in joining or engaging the community on behalf of your brand, we’d love to hear from you.  Otherwise, stay tuned, you’ll be hearing more about this fabulous group in future posts.