The overall take away is that while Millennials still relate strongly to the idea of a “dream” of limitless possibilities, they also are in the process of redefining those possibilities in a less material and more experiential/personal way.

Some of the redefinition is a rejection of what they in the lives of their parents. Some is simply part of a deeper desire to make a meaningful difference in the lives of others, the nation or the world. Many defined success in terms of affirmation from peers, others defined it in terms of greater satisfaction from work or ‘happiness’.

@GenyChat: Q2. Do you believe that there are generational differences in how personal and material success are defined?

@kelly_ashworth: Absolutely! I think GenY will be less focused on $ which failed for many of our parents and more focused on happiness.

@malapropicninny: Heck yes. As GenY, I’d like to have a nest egg, but if I’m working & doing something I love, I don’t mind the lifelong grind!

@josippetrusa: Definitely, how gen-y appears to the world both online and in person “defines” our perceived success

@steve_campbell: Definitely. Gen Y doesn’t necessarily care about following a set path to find happiness.

@Outlaw_Inc: Yes. GenY’s success = having the freedom and flexibility to pursue passions, have great experiences.

@steve_campbell: I’d say we definitely worry about our future less than our parents do Not to say we don’t care, but we’re not overly worried

@NahumG: Let’s see..if the American Dream is supposed to be living on your own with a career and great family I’m on my way, but it’s taking a LOT longer than I thought it would take to get there.

@E_Hanson: We’re more focused on doing what truly makes us happy and experiencing everything we possibly can.

@steve_campbell: I agree. Experiences seem to be a bigger part of our lives.

@niltiac: Definitions of ‘success’ have changed over time. The Baby Boomers who started that process, Gen X and Y continue it.

@kelly_ashworth: I think we have a belief that it will work out, and we’ll figure it out along the way… ties into our optimism

@WriterChanelle: Are those the trappings of success for us, though? I just want a place of my own and a car.

@josippetrusa: Not so much a trapping of our own but something that we have put into believing

@GenerationMeh: Interesting! I see a lot of worry/angst/second guessing, maybe more about self-worth than $, though.

@daniellewriter: For me, success is liking my job, not how big my paycheck is.

@steve_campbell: Familiarity with technology helps with our vision of how the world works too, which lessens worry

@josippetrusa: When someone RTs an article I’ve written, that’s what I see as “successful”

@WriterChanelle: *Deep sigh* YES!! I’ll take a Google Alert with my post showing up over a BMW

@TylerDurbin: Amen!

@josippetrusa: When you [@WriterChanelle] notified me that one day when my article came up, biggest smile ever!!

@WriterChanelle: It’s GenY’s “having your name in lights” re: Google Alert

I’m particularly fascinated by the last few remarks as they are less about ‘fame’ than about affirmation. Your name in lights re: Google is not exactly the world’s definition of success, but it appears to be a meaningful yardstick for these Gen Y’ers.

Last week, Jenny Blake, the blogger behind “Life After College” announced in her blog that she had landed a book deal. The excitement was contagious. Here’s how she described her feelings a few days later. Note the focus is on her immediate ‘supporters’ – one senses this is the group that truly matters to her:

I feel like the luckiest girl in the world. Partly because of the book deal, but partly because I got propped up by a small army of support these last two weeks by having all of you celebrate with me. Every tweet, text, email, call, facebook note, hug and high-five just filled me to the brim with gratitude. This book finally feels real — thanks to you.

Experiences are better when they are shared.

I think of Jenny’s response as quintessentially ‘Millennial’ – team oriented, collaborative and authentic. For marketers, this insight could be potentially quite profound. Social media is not just about ‘communicating’ with friends, it is about ‘connecting’.   Marketers who provide affirmation, as well as information, will find it easier to fit into the lives of Millennials and their idea of success.

How can your brand provide the ‘high fives’ and ‘five minutes of fame’ Millennials value?

The Internet is a modern day three ring circus: there’s something cool going on everywhere you look. According to Comscore, 45% of all page transitions are ‘link following’. Every web page offers multiple enticements to move on. To create interest, you must say something worth staying with, in other words ‘relevant’.

Keeping Gen Y’s attention in an environment defined by distraction requires being ‘interesting’.

Gen Y blogger, Meg Roberts, wrote an article titled “How I would market to myself’ in which she offers this advice:

“Focus on adding value rather than overloading on content. The best way to ensure we’re listening to your messages is to make them relevant to us.  Learn why we’re in a given community, whether it’s Facebook or Twitter or an iPhone app, and speak to us without severely interrupting what we’re doing .”

Note the words “without severely interrupting”. When creating messages for Millennials, it’s important to ask whether or not the message meet the test of whether it’s worth interrupting.

If a friend wouldn’t interupt than a marketer shouldn’t either.

For Millennials, interruptions are the height of rudeness. There is a heirarchy of communications. A phone call is highly interruptive – and it’s little wonder that Millennials make very few phone calls. Phone calls are reserved for very important conversations, like telling your parents you need money or will be traveling to Puerto Rico rather than home for spring break. For less momentus communications, which is to say most communications, they rely on texts.  A teen sends hundreds of texts a day. Texts are less intrusive than phone calls and yet still has urgency. Email is even less intrusive than texts. Email is used when a message is not time sensitive or does not require an immediate response.

Is it Relevant, Cool or Exciting?

Another test for relevance is whether a communication is ‘status update worthy’. As Gen y marketer and community member, Josip Petrusa, puts it this way:

“One thing we love to do is tell the world when something cool, great or exciting is happening to us. In a sense, we love to brag for attention. You’ll always hear about the vacation we’re going on, the sports event we’re going to, the movie we’re seeing, the concert we were at and I could go on and on. Make it something that will give me a reason to tell everyone else about it. A funny and ridiculous video-clip, a great experience or something that even seems exclusive, would all be status update worthy.” You have to reinvent cool, great and exciting.”

What’s In It for Me?

There is a myth that Millennials don’t like advertising. Actually this isn’t true. They like ads that are entertaining or funny, especially for brands they already love. They love the iPad, Axe and current Kindle ads.  These are ads that give back something in return for attention.

The Associated Press (AP), a group with a vested interest in Millennials’ interest in news and ads, released a study in March that looked at ‘news ad fatigue’.  The study took an in-depth, ethnographic approach that focused especially on people 18-34. The research concluded that consumers are “tired, even annoyed, by the current experience of advertising,” and that, as a result, “they don’t trust very much of it“.

Younger consumers, ages 18-34, want to be in the know, and two thirds think it’s important to be among the first to hear news compared with just 10 % of older people. Millennial consumption of news is actually increasing. According to  Mckinsey the average person consumes 72 minutes of news a day, compared with just 60 minutes in 2006 and the increase was driven almost entirely by people under the age of 35.

Young adults have adopted ways of getting their news that are much different from those of past generations. Younger consumers are not only less reliant on the newspaper to get their news; they also consume news across a multitude of platforms and sources, all day, constantly. They also think of each other as their main news source.

Here’s a description of how “Mark”, a 28-year old manager of an online travel agency consumes media.

“Mark’s news cycle was continuous and he spent up to six hours a day searching for and receiving information. Mark was on the Internet most of the day and used that time to keep up to date on news coverage and sports-related information. Mark liked his news to be “punchy” and pointfocused. He read the headlines followed up online to “find out what’s happening” with stories that he wanted to track. Mark’s news consumption was related to other activities that he was engaged in and although he was actively consuming the news, it was almost always in tandem with other activities such as driving or working…

You may be surprised to learn,  that brands do not do all that well in social media among Millennials. Only 12% have ‘friended ‘ a brand on Facebook. Only four brands on Facebook have more than five million ‘liking’ – only 16 have more than 1.5 million.  22% of Millennial use Twitter, a small number to begin with, but of those, only 29% follow companies.  Friending a brand is a high hurdle. In terms of Facebook fans, the numbers are even lower. Just 2 brands have more than 5 million fans on Facebook, Starbucks and Coca-cola.

So what do they find relevant?

It will probably come as no surprise that the main reason to join a fan group on Twitter or Facebook is to get news or discounts. Here according to a Pace University study are the top reasons to fan a brand on Facebook:

• Getting news or product updates (67%)
• Having access to promotions (64%)
• Viewing or downloading music or videos (41%)
• Submitting opinions (36%)
• Connecting with other consumers (33%)

Meg Roberts concurs. Her blog post, “How I would Market to Myself”, goes on to offer this advice about  ’free stuff’ and interating ‘conversatoinally’ with her favorite brands.

“We’re just out of college.  Loan payments are becoming a harsh reality.  If you want us to try out your brand, give us some free samples or coupon codes.  Plus, if a company could build an entire online community based on the loyalty rewards system, I’d probably check it out to see what other users are saying about new products/sales/coupons/etc.”

“Don’t use social media as a billboard but as a telephone. Social media should be an interactive tool, and when your consumers speak, listen and respond. In my experience, the most successful Twitter accounts and Facebook fan pages are those that go beyond simple @replies and wall posts. Ask questions, get our feedback, and implement changes. Everyone likes to have their ego stroked, right? Brand consumers, especially Gen Y ones, are no different. What feels better than having a company listen to reasonable, quality recommendations we’ve made?”

(This post is the second in a series about digital marketing to Millennials based on a speech given at iMedia Summit, Miami on June 15. Tomorrow: “What Do They Want? Tapping Into Desires”)

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.

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.”

Many companies are still deciding whether to redirect marketing spending, and more fundamentally, whether it offers a new platform for brand differentiation.

There are three tests for determining whether a new idea is a fad (something people talk about) or a real change (something people actually do).

1. What is driving it? Real trends are more likely to be supported by underlying changes in demographics, values, lifestyle or technology, not just pop culture, fashion or media

2. How accessible is to the mainstream? How much of a change in habits is required?  How high are the barriers or costs in time and money?

3. How broadly based is it? Is it expressed across more than just a few categories or groups?

By these standards, social media is a fundamental change in how brands connect with customers. The underlying drivers are solid. Millennials, the first wave of adopters, represented a significant shift in demographics and values.  Accessibility requirements were met via rapid broadband penetration and low prices or even ‘free’ access. And the rapid spread from young adults to near ubiquity across geographies, generations and cultures suggest it has utility beyond a niche.

A new Razorfish Outlook report reveals that social media represents just 4% of their client’s average media spend (although they acknowledge this may underrepresent the investment since much of the cost is in labor).  A joint study by Facebook and Nielsen that covered over 800,000 users, 70 advertisers and 125 campaigns concluded that Facebook advertising provides measureable lift in such key brand measures as Ad Recall, Brand Awareness, and Purchase Intent. “Homepage ads increased awareness of the product or brand by 4% on average, but exposure to both homepage ads and organic ads increased awareness by a delta of 13% versus the control group.” With results like this, you would expect many brands to be rushing to take advantage of ‘earned media’ impressions to be gained through social media.

Whether marketers should be spending more is the question. The answer depends on whether you see social media as just another tactic or as a new strategic brand building tool.

The methods of brand building have always been dynamic.  Regis McKenna, an early pioneer in high tech marketing, writes “the discipline of marketing — if one can call it a discipline — change with new generations and eras of technology.”

We have come a long way from the days of Unique Selling Propositions and product performance-based brand strategies. In the 80′s, user lifestyle and brand personality became a recognized way to create differentiation for brands that offered no inherent product-based differences, such as apparel, luxury goods, soft drinks, cosmetics. Then companies like Apple, Dell, and Nike showed how a distinctive customer experience based on better design, user experience and customer service could also offer powerful ways to build a strong, differentiated brand.

As each new innovation was explored, brands learned how to borrow from these new ‘toolkits’ to strengthen their own position, even if the basis of their differentiation (product, lifestyle, etc.) remained the same. Social media may in fact represent the latest in the evolutionary line of brand building approaches.

The goal is still the same – a differentiated, strong brand. Social media offers a new toolkit for reaching that goal. The question facing many brands now is whether to adopt that toolkit. Social media has proven to be an especially powerful way to reach Gen Y due to their greater comfort with technology and passion for customized experiences. But is it the best way? Who benefits most? And when is it most appropriate?

The first step to answering these questions is to first define what we mean by ‘social media’.  David Teicher, Social Media Manager & Digital Strategist at McCann-Erickson, has suggested the term ‘social media‘ is not all that useful (“There’s no such thing as Social Media”, 1.5.10). He proposes “we stop using the term social media (though, we can still discuss social networks, platforms, or vehicles), and start referring to living, breathing, evolving dynamic media, because that’s what it is.” To Teicher, it is this dynamic aspect that makes social media so powerful:

“…every time I retweet an article or show a friend a funny video, or post a product review or campaign analysis on my blog, I’m not just restating existing content – I am reconstructing it, which is so much more impactful than simple reiteration. Furthering its spread, yes, but irrevocably altering it in the process, and thus making it my own.  And when I, or more importantly, when consumers can claim partial ownership of content – such materials become more influential over behaviors, both social and commercial. …The key is to provide users, consumers, with inherently moldable content, subject matter that can exist on its own – that has innate appeal – yet is receptive to reshaping and reinterpretation, along with the tools to do so, so that consumers can take branded content and create something personally meaningful from it.”

Dynamism is precisely what makes ‘social media’ a challenge for brand marketers. Strategists are accustomed to thinking in terms of key messages and themes, not content that can be adapted and molded. How can social media be considered a brand building tool, when you literally have no control over what is being said?

Social media is more about the time and place (context) and favorability (sentiment) of the message than than the content.  For brand marketers, this represents a fundamental challenge — how to build a brand by putting the focus on affinity as a means rather than an end. This is particularly challenging as ‘affinity’ is not even defined necessarily in terms of the brand as it is in CRM (think Harley clubs), but instead in terms of what the consumer wants to talk about. The focus is on ‘resonance’ not on the underpinnings of image, benefits or attributes.

This approach to brand building is not for the faint of heart. It requires a dedication to understanding users and potential users in a deep way. It means turning the focus away from the brand and onto customers and potential customers, giving them opportunities to take brand content and make it their own. As Teicher puts it, “consumers are producers too.”

“People don’t want to create content from scratch. We live in the heart of remix culture. Intrinsically valuable materials need to be provided to consumers, accompanied by both the means to impart a personal, individualized meaning – the added value, be it emotional, contextual, cultural, or otherwise – and the tools to easily share their product.”

The brands that seem to be experiencing the most success with this approach  put the tools for self-expression into the hands of their customers, rather than relying on viral videos or gimmicks. Here is a list of the top 10 brands on Facebook, according to number of fans, excluding Facebook itself which is the leader with over 9 million fans.

#2 Starbucks 7,266,488 Fans

#3 Coca-Cola 5,567,046 Fans

#4 YouTube 5,114,322 Fans

#5 Red Bull 3,727,372 Fans

#6 Disney 3,488,088 Fans

#7 Victoria’s Secret 3,470,724 Fans

#8 Converse 2,749,691 Fans

#9 McDonald’s 2,270,109 Fans

#10 H&M 2,062,377 Fans

#11 MTV 1,924,744 Fans

A visit to each of these pages reveals that each of these brands uses social media to give their customers a voice. The conversation is less about the brand than about shared interests or passion points. None of these brands is using social media as its only brand building strategy, but social media is providing an extra dimension of differentiation, above and beyond what they are able to do with a product, lifestyle or user experience approach alone.

My conclusion is that dynamic social media may in fact represent a new way to build a brand, but will not replace other methods as the primary means of differentiation for some time.

Instead it offers an additional layer of differentiation, particularly for brands that have already set themselves apart via a more classic brand strategy approach, it is a potent new tool and one that should not be ignored, particularly if the answer is ‘yes’ to any of these three questions:

1. Does your brand target Millennials?

2. Does your brand share significant passions with its target that are not directly related to the brand’s key performance characteristics or image such as a cause or environmental interest?

3. Does your brand connect with its customers primarily at the corporate rather than product level? (i.e., span multiple products or have an evolving product offering?)

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?

My husband objected – he thought I was being rude. Needless to say I put the phone away, but I it occurred to me that if I had been with my Millennial-age son or daughter instead of my husband, there would have been no objection.

In honor of Mother’s Day, Retrevo provided some interesting insights about the shifting mores of cell phone use.

Retrovo’s research asked 1000 Twitter and Facebook users when they thought it appropriate to allow an electronic interruption. They found that mobile communications have become a persistent factor of everyday life. “Over 40% of respondents saying they didn’t mind being interrupted for a message. In fact, 32% said a meal was not off limits while 7% said they’d even check out a message during an intimate moment. ”  The study concluded:

“Social media is embedded in our lives. It’s why people go to a restaurant and check Foursquare before they sit down with their friends, then take a picture of their food before they eat and upload it to Facebook,” — Manish Rathi, co-founder and VP-marketing, Retrev0.

Even with this widespread tolerance, the study revealed striking generational differences in tolerance. (See chart) Almost half of mobile phone users under the age of 25 allow social media updates to interrupt meals compared to just 27% of older users.  As far as interruptions for more intimate moments, 24% of users under 25 allow “electronic message” to interrupt them while they’re in the bathroom vs. just 12% for those over 25.  And in a widely reported statistic, 11% of those under 25 would even allow social media updates to interrupt them while having sex, vs. just 7% of those over 25 (ponder that one for a minute and I guarantee you will have even more questions!).

A funny blog post today by Boomer is titled “Do You Find People Annoyed by Cell Phone Users Annoying?”. The post is meant to be satirical, but my guess is that it may actually sound reasonable those under 25. Here’s a sample:

“Are people who get irritated about public cell-phone use actually the selfish ones? I think so. I love using my cell phone in public. I come from Texas so I talk loud. I especially like talking to my doctor about sensitive medical information, spots where I have rashes and that sort of thing. We all have rashes. We all have to talk to our doctors on our cell phones. And sometimes those conversations happen inside of crowded elevators. We are human beings, for crying out loud. But I keep hearing about these people who are irritated with people like me. They think it’s rude. But here are some things I’d like these people to remember: The person I am talking to on the phone is a person, too. It’s not like I’m talking into a Dictaphone.  And people matter.”

‘Annoying cell phone use’ may be become a bigger issue in the future.  I even found an article by ‘Wedding Planner’ that lays down some rules of etiquette for cell phone use in social situations.

Why is it that  the need to stay connected with the ambient social network often overwhelms what’s happening in the immediate surroundings?

I think I know. First, the virtual world feels just as ‘real’ to a heavy social network user as the virtual one. Second, there is a sense that something important may happen and we don’t want to miss it.  Combined, these two factors give social media an urgency that is missing from other kinds of  ’media’. While this urgency may be a bad thing for proponents of etiquette and for society at large, it is infact a very good thing for marketers – provided we respect the ‘media‘.

I deliberately put ‘media’ in quotes because marketers’ presence on social media is an uneasy one.  Social media is more social than media, even if it has a ‘public’ aspect to it. This is especially true of Twitter and LinkedIn, but with it’s announcement about opening the social graph, even the content on Facebook pages are increasingly acknowledged to be not truly our own. Likewise, I have heard few objections to Twitter’s recent announcement that it would allow embedded commercial tweets. These are quasi public spaces, and marketers are, if not welcome, at least acknowledged to have a role.

At the extreme end, Foursquare and Gowalla are decidedly public, that is even the point – to tell marketers and others where you are. Perhaps that is why they are causing such a stir in the marketing community at the moment.

At the opposite extreme, text messages are still deemed private. We grant few marketers have permission to provide SMS text messages.

Engaging consumers, and especially Millennial consumers, via social media requires thinking like a friend, not an advertiser. A friend would not interrupt unless it was important or worth sharing.

Developing this kind of urgent, relevant communication requires a new approach to strategic planning. Yes, a brand strategy is essential for guiding consistent brand personality and behavior (i.e., the essential ‘authenticity’ we hear so much about). But forget about crafting a ‘communications strategy’ or ‘key message’.  It simply doesn’t matter what ‘message’ we want to get across. What matters is what ‘content’ will the friend find interesting enough or compelling enough to interupt what they are doing to read it or respond?

In an excellent post on his blog, Creativity Unbound, Edward Boches, chief creative officer at Mullen discusses, in addition to other changes, the way that the agencies must evolve to meet the demands of digital and social media. Indeed he even argues we are living in a ‘post digital’ age. Here are two of his most powerful recommendations:

Start with the user
Read Tim Brown’s Change by Design and you realize that anything you want to create – product, experience, environment, and process – starts with the user. From a marketer’s perspective that means 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.

Re-write the brief
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.

First, a word about the methodology. One hundred five iconic brands were rated by a panel of 448 people, with an average age of 28.5 and . The sample included individuals from 45 countries including the U.S. (68%) and was limited to respondents who are on a ‘trajectory to earn more than $100,000 in the short-term and double their income within the next five years.” The questions used to determine rank included awareness and ‘sentiment’ (unspecified).

The survey  revealed that Gen Y men and women both admit to being “brand conscious” (65% of women and 61% of men). However they only consider a few brands to be ‘epic’ — although it’s not clear what this means exactly. Many more fall into the classifications ‘whatever‘, ‘tired‘ or ‘off the grid‘.

The top ten ‘epic’ brands for women are heavily weighted toward high end fashion and hotels:

1 Chanel (Fashion)

2 Ritz-Carlton (Hotels)

3 Four Seasons (Hotels)

4 Marc Jacobs (Fashion)

5 Cartier (Watches & Jewelry)

6 BMW (Auto)

7 Mercedes-Benz (Auto)

8 W Hotels (Hotels)

9 Prada (Fashion)

10 Audi (Auto)

The list for men is focused on Auto and Hotel brands:

1 BMW (Auto)

2 Ferrari (Auto)

3 Porsche (Auto)

4 Lamborghini (Auto)

5 Audi (Auto)

6 Aston Martin (Auto)

7 Four Seasons (Hotels)

8 Mercedes-Benz (Auto)

9 Ralph Lauren (Fashion)

10 Ritz-Carlton ( Hotels)

The report gives special kudo’s to Fashion brand, Marc Jacobs, and Audi for their efforts to engage Millennials with its brand through Foursquare and other social media.

Are All Millennials Tech Savvy?

One of the biggest myths about Millennials is that they are all digital natives, blogging and tweeting their way through life.  The truth is a bit more nuanced.

True, Millennials are some of the most avid USERS of mobile and Internet technology.

The age of first cell phone is dropping rapidly and now stands at about 9 or 10. Currently nearly six  of every ten 12-year olds have their own cell phone, a figure that increases to 83% by age 17.  On average, 75% of all 13-17  year olds have a mobile phone, 93% go online (76% with broadband), and 80% have a console gaming device (Pew Research).

It’s also true that Millennials rely heavily on digital media to manage their daily life activities, stay informed and stave off boredom.

Digital media so pervades their lives, they cannot imagine living without it. Digital content and communication literally enables their social lives. Some even refer to this dependency as  ’addiction’.

A new study conducted at the University of Maryland asked 200 college students to give up digital media for 24 hours and write about the experience. The students’ journals, which amounted to the equivalent of a 400-page novel, were full of stories of deprivation and emotional angst. “We noticed that what they wrote at length about was how they hated losing their personal connections. Going without media meant, in their world, going without their friends and family.”

“I clearly am addicted and the dependency is sickening,” said one person in the study. “I feel like most people these days are in a similar situation, for between having a Blackberry, a laptop, a television, and an iPod, people have become unable to shed their media skin.”

“Texting and IM-ing my friends gives me a constant feeling of comfort,” wrote one student. “When I did not have those two luxuries, I felt quite alone and secluded from my life. Although I go to a school with thousands of students, the fact that I was not able to communicate with anyone via technology was almost unbearable.”

One student said he realized that he suddenly ‘had less information than everyone else, whether it be news, class information, scores, or what happened on Family Guy.”

The Maryland researchers concluded that “most college students are not just unwilling, but functionally unable to be without their media links to the world….Without digital ties, students feel unconnected even to those who are close by.”

Given this level of dependency, it follows that Millennials are adept at manipulating and adapting technology to their needs. However, this is not the case, at least for the majority of Gen Y.

The top six web sites by volume according to Experian’s Hitwise service are pretty mainstream: 1. Facebook 2. Google 3. Myspace 4. Yahoo 5. Yahoo Mail 6. Youtube.  Although my students are adept at Facebook, and finding information, music and videos online, few make use of Twitter or maintain a blog. This is in line with statistics by Forrester, which shows only half of 18-24 year olds are what they classify as  ’creators’.  Few students make use of RSS feeds, wikispaces or other productivity enhancing tools.

A 2007 study by Northwestern professor, Hargittai on web use among so-called ‘digital natives’ reached the conclusion that there is a wide range of web use and skill levels among young adults. Over 1000 college freshman were surveyed on the frequency and diversity of their web use as well as indexed for skill on 27 variables.  The study found a range of skill and use and concluded, ”web-use skill is not randomly distributed among a group of young adults who have grown up with digital media.”  While some of the diversity could be explained via socio-economic status and ethnicity, much could be attributed to what the authors called ‘context of use’, which included the number of years online, the time spent online, access to a laptop and more.  ”Overall, these findings suggest that familiarity with the medium is very much related to how people use the Internet and user savvy mediates some of the otherwise observed relationships of user background and online activities.”

A recent article in The Economist also questioned the assumption that all Gen Y’ers are Internet-savvy (“The Net Generation Unplugged”, March 2010).

“Michael Wesch, who pioneered the use of new media in his cultural anthropology classes at Kansas State University, is also sceptical, saying that many of his incoming students have only a superficial familiarity with the digital tools that they use regularly, especially when it comes to the tools’ social and political potential. Only a small fraction of students may count as true digital natives, in other words. The rest are no better or worse at using technology than the rest of the population.”

The article goes on to point out that according to Pew Research, “internet users aged 18-24 were the least likely of all age groups to e-mail a public official or make an online political donation. But when it came to using the web to share political news or join political causes on social networks, they were far ahead of everyone else. Rather than genuinely being more politically engaged, they may simply wish to broadcast their activism to their peers.”

For marketers, this diversity of use is a caution not to confuse digital dependency with digital savviness. Not all Millennials will be jumping up and down to respond to your latest  crowd-sourced campaign, app or contest.

Many of the popular digital marketing tactics require a level of involvement and expertise may be beyond the skills of many Gen Y members on the far side of the digital divide. Far safer, and more broadly appealing, are approaches where the call to action is easy and intuitive, requiring nothing more than a working knowledge of how to use XBox, text messages, Facebook or Youtube.

Interestingly, the exhibits were mostly about ‘Tech‘ while the speakers were mostly about ‘Ad’. It was as if two conferences were happening simultaneously.

First the ‘tech’.  Digital technology means that ‘media’ is defined in a whole new way. It’s still about content, but that content is more targeted and interactive.  A case study on the panel I moderated by Alloy Marketing (alloy.tv) and their client, LG Mobile, featured a series of 11 webisodes titled “Haute & Bothered“. The series generated so much comment thru different viral channels via YouTube, RockYou and Meez.com that it will soon begin a second season.  Geoff Ramsey of EMarketer.com described a new kind of video from Coincident.tv where viewers can literally friend characters as the  playing, as with this ‘hypertrailer’ for Glee. Coincident.tv has essentially developed an XML-based metadata framework dubbed Cue Point Language that makes it possible to add additional content, links or even various types of actions to any predefined point of a video.

Placement of media is also high tech. Advertising networks respond to advertiser queries in just 50 milliseconds, with the highest bidder winning exposure. The ads we see are determined by who we are, the context and what that viewing is ‘worth’ to those bidding.  This targeting precision is something the Mad Men-era ad guys never dreamed of.

Finally, attention, interest, desire and action (the old AIDA model) can all happen simultaneously with digital media, so everything is measurable.  We know what works instantly or close to instantly.  As Sarah Fay of DMG Media, the owner of Ad:Tech, the iMedia Summits and the CMO Summits puts it, “Data is the New Black.  Data management is becoming ‘the’ key ingredient to planning and managing effective advertising program.”

On the ‘Ad’ side of ‘Ad:Tech’, creativity is center stage and ‘insights’ are the new strategy.

Ironically, creative ideas for digital advertising seem to be less about science and more about art. (In this respect, Don Draper would feel right at home!)  It would appear that digital execution makes strategy, if not less important, certainly less connected to execution. Now, speed of execution is everything. In a world of instant results and low or no media cost, pre-testing is irrelevant. You can literally ‘just do it’. In his keynote, Jaime Cohen Szulc, CMO, Levi Strauss & Co. made this point explicit when he recommended strategy and execution be handled separately, by different agencies. His reasoning? Both have become ‘too complicated’ to be handled by one agency, it now takes an ‘agency network’, each ‘playing to position’ to create an effective campaign’.

I have been in marketing long enough to know that it takes both strategy and execution matter, and they work best when they work together. So I expect there to be a course correction sometime in the near future, with greater focus on both strategy and media technology. This may come sooner rather than later,  once marketers realize there is little more incrementally to be gained from ever finer ways of optimizing media buys. Dynamic Logic, which has researched over 300 online campaigns for efficacy came to this conclusion in a recent report for the 4A’s. “When it comes to digital advertising, a lot of time is spent choosing Web sites, ad sizes, formats, targeting and other factors. Maximizing creative quality, is the foremost driver of ad effectiveness—even more important than targeting, ad size or ad format.”

Even in the new world of high tech advertising and media, ad effectiveness will still be determined by both media targeting and message relevance and likeability. Of the two, overall impact is determined more by the message than by targeting, even in digital media.