I should begin by saying that, yet again, the fine folks at YPulse have made me stop and think. Their most recent post chronicles Gatorade’s attempt to rebrand (and score media attention) through their cryptic and much-discussed “G” campaign. (If you need a refresher, you can view a clip here. Essentially, Gatorade ran a series of unbranded, star-studded commercials in an effort to build buzz.) And it worked. For weeks, curious viewers flocked to the web, asking the Google Gods who was behind the ads. A few weeks later, the ruse was revealed, and just about everyone gave a collective nod and said to themselves, well, that sounds about right. Most media watchers agreed that it was a success — if a short lived one. One point Gatorade.
In an effort to build on the success, Gatorade has created a stand-alone microsite for the “G” brand. The site is designed to house a wealth of Gatorade-made video content, which, at least in theory, Gen-Y-ers will spend hours pouring over. This attempt is of particular interest to YMC since we’re in the business of helping brands connect with their consumers both physically and digitally. Now, to be sure, Gatorade (or rather, Gatorade’s creative agency) has made some excellent content. This stuff is stunning. I mean, they have access to Kevin Garnett, Tiger Woods, those weird masked dancing guys from that dancing show on Fox, and they have a budget, I’m sure, that rivals NASA’s. In that respect, Gatorade is just about the ideal client to develop a digital campaign for.
And of course, like any smart brand, Gatorade makes it possible to share the content they make on just about every conceivable platform. Add a video to your blog, your Facebook page, your, er, LiveJournal. It’s yours! Do whatever you want with the content, Gatorade tells us. But I wonder: is there enough opportunity for dialogue with the consumer? Sure, you’re allowing those share-happy Gen-Y-ers to send your 30-second video to their friends, but are you giving them a chance to really interact with the brand?
So, I’m going to open this up to y’all. What do you think of Gatorade’s efforts? Do you think this will resonate with Gen Y? Or is Gatorade not going far enough?
This happens to me every so often, and when it does, I’m always a little awestruck. It goes like this: It’s nearly noon, I’m trolling the web, hitting my usual list of blogs, sifting through my RSS reader and sending the occasional email while finishing lunch (a superb salad from Chop’t, if anyone’s curious). I consume a lot of content during these casual strolls across the web, and most of it barely registers. I glance over a few lines of text, I smile or furrow my brow, and I move on. In these moments, the fact that 99.99999 percent of the content I take in is free makes perfect sense to me.
But sometimes, like today, I cross something so clear and cogent, that I have to stop and give thanks for the awesome power of the internet. And all of it for free! Oh, world wide web, how did we exist without you?
Without further hyping, I give you the above mentioned clear-and-cogent-thinking-that-made-me-stop-and-think. It’s a short presentation from Shiv Singh, VP of Global Social Media at Razorfish. It’s a genuinely worthwhile look at the evolution of the social networking universe — and what is means for the future of brands. The major take-away may not come as a shock to most. Essentially, Singh echoes what many of us in the marketing universe have been saying of late: that social networking means that communication has to be a two-way street between brands and consumers. It may be an old-news message, but the context Singh provides is really valuable. So read it, and then take its message to heart and start interacting in an authentic way with your consumers.
Ever since cell phones reached a level of ubiquity that rivals pants, those in the business of marketing to Generation Y have been trumpeting the coming of mobile technology. For mobile technology boosters, the refrain is always the same: “Next year — next year mobile technology is going to be huge.” It’s been about five years now, and “next year” simply hasn’t come. (In that way, it seems that mobile technology fanboys and Chicago Cubs loyalists are in the same boat.) But that’s changing.
Mobile technology may have fallen victim to early hype, but there’s no denying that, sooner than later, mobile technology is going to be a key platform for reaching today’s youth. The numbers are simply too good to ignore. Consider this data-rich post from marketing guru, Dave Knox. According to Knox’s numbers, the cellphone is the most popular electronic device in the world; there are more than two times as many cellphones as there are computers. More interestingly still, the average America gets their first cellphone at 10 years old! (At ten years old, I don’t think I even knew my home phone number.) And, again according to Knox, 88 percent of tweens/teens use their cellphone every single of day of their lives. In short: an entire generation is growing up with cellphones — which are, more and more, resembling mobile computers — glued to their hands. Cellphones are stuck on Gen Y like some kind of technological barnicle, and they’re not going anywhere. The longterm result? Not even the most tech-phobic could claim that mobile technology is heading in any direction but up.
We at YMC have, for some time now, advocated a holistic combination of physical (through experiential marketing) and digital (through mobile technology marketing and social media marketing). When the two are employed simultaneously, you’re reaching Gen-Y-ers in a way it genuine and authentic — because it mirrors the way they communicate with their peers and live their lives. This holistic approach means a brand experience — not just another ad. It means connecting with Gen-Y — not shouting at them.
Final thought: mobile technology is posied to fulfill its great promise. Get ready.
Before we begin in earnest, a quick note about the weather: if you’re an East Coaster, you know that this weekend was a godsend — a brief and otherworldly reprieve from winter. Those of us at the Washington, DC, office enjoyed weather in the low 60s, and this week promises to bring highs near 70. (Those stuck in YMC’s Boston headquarters have been less lucky. Sorry guys.) All of this is a reminder that Spring Break is fast approaching. It’s probably time to cut back on the calories and start shopping for those new swim trunks. (And if you’ll allow me a brief and shameless plug, I might add that if you’re a brand, and you’re interested in a Spring Break experiential marketing campaign, the time to act is now. We’re only weeks away from kicking off the Spring Break season, and these campaigns don’t build themselves!)
In non-weather news, our friends at YPulse share some hard data on the growing trends towards social media marketing for major American brands. While this shift towards social media marketing has been well documented, it doesn’t make the numbers any less striking. Consider how far social media has come: just a handful of years ago, blogs were seen as the preserve of political obsessives, tech fanatics and live-journaling teens. Fast forward to 2009, and 39 percent of 500 Inc. companies and 13 percent of Fortune 500 companies have an officially sanctioned and regularly updated corporate blog. (What I haven’t found, thus far, is a complete list which corporations are blogging. If anyone out there has a definitive list, I’d surely be interested in seeing it!)
More interestingly, though, for those of us who spend our time marketing to Millenials: American colleges are leading the way in social media communication. This likely doesn’t come as a huge shock to most of you. According to a recent survey, 41 percent of colleges have a blog, and 48 percent of colleges are maintaining a video blog. In total, 86 percent of college admission programs are using some form of social media. Scan through the whole study, found here, to see changes that have taken place in social media usage between 2007 and 2008 alone. For those who get turned off by charts and graphs and terse academic prose, the main take-away is simple: more school are using more forms of social media to reach out to students than ever before. And, more and more, they’re doing it in a way that’s true to YMC’s model of “engaging and authentic”: unlike in years past, more schools are allowing comments on their blogs. In short, they’re seeking to begin a conversation with students and potential students — they’re not just talking at them. And that, after all, is the magic ingredient in effective youth marketing. If you can create an interactive experience — be it physical or digital — that allows Millenials to engage with a brand in an authentic fashion, you’re going to be successful.
As you’ve surely heard, social networking’s reigning goliath, Facebook, grew larger and more goliath-like in 2008. It officially surpassed Myspace as the world’s most popular social networking tool in April 2008. Interestingly, much of it’s virus-like growth has taken place abroad. According to Google, Facebook was the single most popular search term in Belgium, Canada, the United Kingdom, South Africa and Switzerland — and it was among the top ten most popular searches within every other country Google tracks. Which is, you know, basically the whole world.
As the number of active Facebook users quickly approaches the size of a country of its own, the blogosphere has been overflowing with good demographic data that might be of interest to you all. Our ever-sage friends at iStrategyLabs have an excellent summary here. Forrester Research’s Jeremiah Owyang has a wider social networking survey here. Carolyn Phillips at Millenial Marketing has an analysis worth reading as well.
The quick-and-dirty analysis is simple: Facebook is growing in every conceivable direction. At nearly 60 million active users world wide, we’re all running out of big-sounding adjectives to describe it. With that said, the most rapid expansion is taking place not among Millenials — who are by and large already there — but the parents of Millenials. As more than a few people have noted, Facebook is getting older and grayer by the day.
Although there is much hand-wringing across the blogosphere about the likely reaction from the audience we all watch so carefully — those somewhere along the high school and college continuum — we at YMC are unequivocally confident that, at least for the next few years, Facebook will remain a force in the youth marketing world. (For those who needed a reminder, Burger King reminded us of Facebook’s power just the other day.) For the near future, no doubt, Facebook will continue to be an important arrow in YMC’s quiver — and for all others interested in holistic youth marketing. Of course it’s just as important to remember, however, that social networking is just one of many tools. A good campaign is a holistic one — a campaign that touches young people across a number of platforms, creating true peer-driven brand experiences as it goes. It’s our good fortunes as marketers to live in a world where this can be accomplished in so many different ways.
