Engaging, with a Y.

What is youth marketing? More importantly, how do you obtain the attentions of kids who, presumably, have no attention span? How do we connect with the Grand Theft Auto/MySpace generation, when they skip commercials and ignore traditional advertising media?

Really, the question should be: are we giving today’s youth enough credit?

Clint! Runge, creator of Archrival, was in Sioux Falls on Thursday. He talked about youth marketing – a subject not new to the Internet, but new to many in attendance – and he laid it out simply, in a cozy package. What I came away with was the notion that we’re not giving today’s youth enough credit. We’re still trying to market to them like we were marketed to when we were younger. We’re preaching Generation X values to a Generation Y crowd. And the messages aren’t lining up.

To define the terms, we’ll say Generation X involves people aged 25-41. Generation Y spans a much younger audience (ages 5-24). The years might not mean much, the attitudes do.

Members of Generation X (myself included) came of age in a time of rebellion, of bucking trends and searching for individuality. It was about edgy products that your parents probably wouldn’t like. It was about Mountain Dew and Nirvana and Reality Bites. Pessimism and independence were the goals.

It’s different now. Gen X is a parental generation. We are raising our children in a way totally different than what our parents did for us. We’re raising them as optimistic, with feelings of empowerment and entitlement.

Because of this, there’s no need to be edgy. Instead, they want to be part of a team, embracing individuality in a group setting. The youth market today looks to their friends to help them make decisions, not to a brand or a company.

Instead of status, Generation Y values experiences. Their most cherished resource is time. They’ve grown up with and used technology for entertainment, not information. They have a great conscience, but they don’t want to put a lot of work into using it. They all have cell phones, and they all live incredibly connected lives.

What it adds up to is this: today’s youth wants a fully customizable, quick, entertaining message. Friendships are more important than brands, and so they look for peer responses to help them make choices. They want a smart humor. By valuing companies that support good causes, and by spending their money at those companies, they feel that they are participating in a real-life cause. Mountain Dew is out. Volkswagen is in.

Generation Y has a large purchasing power, and because of that they’re leading trends. As a business, you want their attention. And you want it now.

The hang up is that many companies – and many agencies, I’d guess – are filled with Generation X personalities. They write and create advertisements that are supposed to aim at today’s youth, but instead, they’re aiming them at themselves. At a rather small demographic. At the wrong demographic.

Gen Y kids – from kindergarteners to (more importantly) college students with money – want their content fast. Viral marketing through YouTube is working wonders. Adult Swim has taken this concept and ran with it — who has time for a 30 minute show when you can get a 10 minute, fractured, bite-sized cartoon filled with smart, subtle, intelligent humor?

Social networking sites are growing by leaps and bounds, and they’re allowing young people to customize their personal space. They can broadcast their image, they can create a message. We as advertisers aren’t doing a good enough job if we’re simply putting an ad out in front of them. We want the youth to be engaged.

As Runge said, Generation Y is creating its own brand through their blogs, MySpace accounts, and websites. They feel they have more of a political say through their purchases than their vote. Everything needs to be customizable, so they can show individuality while having the same group experience.

It seems so simple. How do you get the attention of today’s youth? You engage them, and you engage them quickly.

It can’t be tedious. It can’t be mind numbing. It needs to be original, funny, smart, engaging. Engaging.

To catch today’s youth market, you need something quick and fun that can be passed along to their friends. A website. A blog. A consumer-controlled aspect. A buzz. A way to become the pseudo-celebrity that they all expect to become through the Internet. You need to listen to them, and update your image accordingly – or better yet, let them update your image for you.

TV? Radio? No. Internet. Mobile Phones. MySpace. YouTube. Create your own media outlet, if you have to. You just need to get them talking. If you have a quality product, the youth market will do the rest for you.

Marketing to youth is less bludgeon, more finesse. You’re planting a seed that, if well planned and creatively done, will sprout into a brand awareness that becomes respected and wanted.

Generation Y expects to be entertained, but they don’t want to be treated like morons; like kids. You need to talk to the consumer like they expect to be talked to. Be funny. Be serious. But whatever you do, don’t underestimate them. If you dumb down your message, you’re going to get a dumbed down audience.

That worked with Generation X.

But this isn’t Generation X anymore.

Happy Anniversary, HenkinSchultz!

A toast to the fifteenth anniversary of HenkinSchultz!

More tomorrow, complete with pictures.

Deconstruction Zone

It’s hardly necessary to deconstruct an ad like this. But it’s a start on what I hope might be a regular feature on Post Haste.

Those of us in advertising do enjoy criticizing one another’s work. It’s done, of course, with full appreciation for all the jumping through flaming hoops on the part of the executing agency (“Wow – I can’t believe the client approved that!”).

This is different from people who like to criticize ads but aren’t in advertising.

You know, those are the ones we always get resumes from. No experience in the business, but they’re convinced that a lifetime spent watching advertising on TV is sufficient qualification.

Which is why we now have YouTube.

At any rate, this Tiny Tina ad reminded me of the typo my co-worker Tammy found about a month ago in our paper. It was announcing the meeting of a church congregation in the local Budweiser “Disturbing Warehouse.”

They sure got that right.

I imagine the crowd – if there was one – that gathered to see Tiny Tina was a bit disturbing, too. That’s only one of the many aspects that make this ad so very wrong on so many levels.

Let me say I have nothing against dwarves, or little people, as I’ve discovered is alternate approved terminology.

But the way the ad presents Tina – 3’9”, “short and sexy” – besides being artlessly redundant – reminds me of a freak show.

I thought society had sort of tacitly agreed that freak shows are no longer cool, that gawking at other people isn’t nice.

So now we’ve got a pornographic freak show.

Little people deserve equal opportunity, even when it comes to being sex objects. But it’s not like this is happening in a vacuum. There’s an entire history of how little people have been treated. And if you ask me, they’ve had way too much opportunity when it comes to being exploited.

What if Tiny Tina could find a real job that pays well? Like in advertising or something? How many little people have you EVER worked with at an agency?

Certainly it’s none of my business what people do for entertainment. Or where they worship.

But one generally hopes people – of all sizes – can find mutually respectful, intimate relationships.

Patriotism Gone Awry

Has anyone else noticed lately the popularity of using an image of the American flag and similar patriotic themed images in advertising?

Last night on my way home, I drove past a local car repair shop that had an electronic, animated LCD marquee between the road and its front door. The message flashing on the marquee invites people to stop in and see how well they treat their customers. The business enhanced the invitation with a free cup of coffee. At the top of the flashing text message was an animated American Flag, used as a border, drawn out with the red LCD light bulbs.

As I read the message on the marquee, I wondered if the business owner believed that adding the American flag to the message made the invitation to stop more inviting? Or, was it just a thoughtless gesture; a way to add visual interest to the message?

It seems that the use of stars and stripes for marketing is becoming a cliché. Many of the local car ads I’ve seen in the past few years have had the stars and stripes splashed across them somehow. And I think about all the small, brandless businesses that have taken up red, white, and blue, stars and stripes for their image. The American Flag Store web site, even offers patriotic-themed signs for your business.

Now, I understand that since 9/11, it’s become hip to be patriotic. Remember how prolific the American flag image was in those first months after that horrific event? It seemed as though every car in America had a patriotic bumper sticker, or magnetic cling. I remember our local newspaper had even printed a full-page red, white, and blue flag to proudly display in your living room window. The flag was everywhere. At first, the gestures of patriotism were sincere. We came together as a nation, using the flag, and our patriotism as the glue to bond people of different race, religion, and culture into a single body.

I wonder how long it will take for the general public to see that simply adding the American flag to something doesn’t increase it’s branding strength. I also wonder if the recent popularity of commercializing the American flag is in some way a detriment to the symbol of our nation’s flag.

The More Things Change

I have a wonderful book given to me by a co-worker (thanks again, Don) called the Advertisers Cyclopedia of Selling Phrases, published in 1909 by the Economist Training School in New York.

It’s an enormous, four-inch thick book filled with treasures, such as:

“A multitude of millinery marvels. The climax of refined taste. Individuality striking and varied. Exquisite harmonies to be found nowhere else” (A.D. Matthews’ Store, Brooklyn, NY).

“The wicked stand in slippery places, but the wise man patronizes the Ogden Steam Laundry” (Ogden, Utah).

Which makes me wonder — back in the day, what did consumers think of advertising?

Did people actually believe they were doomed if they didn’t patronize the Ogden Steam Laundry? Somehow, I doubt it.

I’ve always envisioned that early advertising was more honest. I mean, there’s only far you can go without Photoshop.

Then again, a lot of money was made from snake oil. I saw The Illusionist the other night; clearly, the art of deception is nothing new.

I’m betting things might not have been so different. We still have advertising that relies on pretty words or pictures, such as A.D. Mathews’ Store. Fashion, perfume and jewelry advertising come to mind.

We still have advertising that suggests there might be something wrong with you if you don’t use the product or service in question.

If you use a PC instead of a Mac, you’re a loser. If you can’t remain upright for more than four hours, you’re inadequate.

And if, God forbid, you didn’t pop for OnStar in your new vehicle, you’d definitely be standing in slippery places, stranded there along with your sobbing, helpless, now traumatized-for-life young children and frail, elderly relatives.

Plus, some folks are still making money from snake oil – see www.breast-lift-enhancement.com.

Just because they didn’t have MP3s, DVDs, CDs, TVs, PSPs, Nintendo, Internet, digital video cameras or 8-track tape players, it doesn’t mean people back in the day were more stupid and gullible.

I mean, it’s hard to imagine that. Today, about 11 percent of Americans believe Elvis is still alive and a growing number believe the earth was created 6,000 years ago.

So I think it’s just the human condition (I love that term, as though just being human were a disease) — some of the people can be fooled some of the time, yesterday, today and probably tomorrow, in about the same proportions.

Truth in Advertising?

Long, persuasive copy. That’s the tactic Ogilvy often used with such success. Just reading his ads makes you feel like a moron for assuming that all luxury vehicles – or cruise ships – were pretty much the same.

Ogilvy’s ads revealed new truths about the product or service.

Fast forward. Not surprisingly, people became cynical and suspicious. They stopped believing what advertisers told them. Today we only pay attention to advertising that involves humor, celebrities, talking reptiles or fun stuff on the Internet.

Which reminds me of a fascinating article I came across in Ode magazine.

The author argues in favor of using electronic games, instead of books, in the classroom.

Whoa. Paradigm shift. Books are bad and video games are good? The author claims books are linear, passive and controlling, while games such as Myst are rich in possibility and sensory stimulation and allow players, or learners, to help determine the outcome. Video games “invite creativity, promote problem-solving abilities and inspire perseverance.”

Moreover, books isolate learners, while video games encourage collaboration and teamwork.

I KNEW there was something positive about my son playing video games 24/7, besides learning the kind of skills that could be useful only to a fighter pilot.

So what’s this got to do with advertising? Even if we use talking reptiles, advertising still educates people – on features, benefits, availability, and so on. Just like Ogilvy.

If people think books are dead, than print advertising is way dead, because, as Ezra Pound said, “Literature is news that stays news.” (And by the way—why don’t publishers sell more ad space in books?) Our agency rarely uses print to reach consumers under 40.

Unfortunately, the people most excited about viral Internet campaigns are folks in advertising or web design. The only web campaign I’ve heard living humans talk about was BK’s Subservient Chicken.

The growing preference for video game style information has inspired many wonderfully creative electronic campaigns. But the brand or product must be incorporated in a tasteful and fun way. Since we don’t believe what advertisers tell us – with good reason – the information must be not only engaging, but true.

In a sense, we’ve become so cynical and suspicious that we’ve come full circle. Right back to truth.

Yeah, but does it sell?

(click to enlarge)

I often pretend to be a soccer fan – sorry, “football” – so I gravitate toward soccer-themed advertisements.

Like this Adidas ad in New Zealand.

Well, it’s not so much an advertisement. It’s a carnival ride.

Coinciding with the 2006 World Cup draw, Adidas created a large billboard – officially, the largest New Zealand billboard ever – with a reverse bungee alongside. Attached to the bungee was a giant soccer ball. As match coverage played over the loudspeakers, two people were strapped inside the ball.

Then, as part of the supposed match coverage, Stephan Gerrard (of England and Liverpool fame, and one of two English football players whose jersey I own) kicks the ball for a goal. Which releases the two strapped-in humans, simulating the experience of being a soccer ball kicked at 170 km/h.

The participants get a DVD of their ride and a history of the new Adidas soccer ball.

What I want to know is this – did they sell any shoes? And if this ball is being used for World Cup, did they sell any extra soccer balls to the bystanders?

Oh yeah, it’s another TBWA creation, the makers of the GPS directed bus ads.

(Thanks to AdverBox for the info)

A veteran’s bond

During a vacation over the Labor Day weekend (and some adjacent weekdays) I visited an ad agency (Osborn-Barr) where I previously worked.

It was great to catch up with my former co-workers and get news on others who have moved on.

At lunch with Gwen, Coach and Bob, I realized that I didn’t think of them as friends. It was more as though we were survivors of the same event; we’d battled in the trenches, done time in San Quentin or built a sandbag wall to hold back flooding.

Of course, comparing the creation of advertising to any of these pursuits just ain’t right. After all, our jobs are more fun than most peoples’ vacations.

So why the reminiscing-old-veteran-like connection?

First, it’s the teamwork that binds us. Second, it’s the pursuit of a common goal and experiencing the highs and lows together.

But surprisingly, I think a third element is vulnerability.

When you’ve stood up and presented your precious, naked, barely-born ideas in front of a group of people, you are vulnerable. And when your little fledgling ideas aren’t stomped on, you feel a little better about doing it the next time.

So it’s not just having worked shoulder to shoulder that whole Memorial Day weekend, hot and humid because the power was out, to get ready for a presentation.

It’s the fact that no infant ideas were harmed during the process.

Keep walking

Anything can be used in advertising. Everything is fair game. But when does it go too far? When do you stand back and say, “Boy, I know this idea is clever that will garner attention, but it’s really in poor taste. I’d better lay off.”

More specifically, can a war-torn area be used as fodder for the promotion of an already famous whisky?

We could ask Leo Burnett/BBH, the agency partnership that brought this Johnny Walker campaign to Beirut. The Johnny Walker man, playing off of the successful “Keep Walking” campaign, casually walks over a broken bridge, showing the determination and stick-to-it-ness that the popular whisky apparently brings to the table. The complaint is that the situation in Beirut – a city that’s been ravaged by war and has its own share of broken bridges littering the area – is being lightened. It’s somehow cheapened.

There are two camps in this. One group finds the ad reprehensible, while the other considers it light-hearted fun. Adverb’s Mack Simpson takes the “reprehensible” side:

Despite a Leo Burnett Chief Creative Officer’s assurances that the outdoor work was intended to “lift morale” in Lebanon (though to “raise spirits” would have been more accurate I think), I can’t help but feel like I need to bathe. Especially when, a few paragraphs later, the same CCO gives us a peek behind the curtain, saying that, “the attention that the campaign had generated on the Internet proved its cost-effectiveness.”

Personally, I’m split between both groups. I think that while it’s a little garish, it’s also a very clever idea that casts a little light on a sensitive subject. Many Americans have no clue of the extent that Beirut is damaged, torn apart. So this ad is informing, causing those who trip over it on the Internet to do a little research for understanding’s sake.

At the same time, there’s little cause to make war (or it’s effects) into a marketing strategy. I understand the money side of this can turn a few stomachs. No one should profit from a war. Informing the public isn’t the intent of this campaign, but it’s welcome from the P.R. department, I’m sure.

What’s happening here? Is this ad selling whisky by exploiting destruction? Or is it informing an otherwise out of touch public and, oh by the way, selling booze?

Is this a company taking advantage of a horrible situation? Or is this just a brilliant marketing idea?

(from Adverb)

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About HenkinSchultz

HenkinSchultz is an agency. An advertising and marketing and branding and design and production agency. All of those things, and then some.

But, underneath all that, we're really a bunch of thinkers. As in, we think about stuff, both pertinent and not, with and without boundaries, as if our lives depended on it. And this right here, Post Haste, is where we write about it.

Visit us at http://www.henkinschultz.com.

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