Engaging with the new generations / an example applicable to marketing

Australia is experiencing a rapid ageing of the population, and this evolution impacts directly the qualities that a good coach must have to manage effectively the relationships in a team of younger players.

Moreover, the swift change of the players’ expectations requires today that coaches receive more often update trainings and education.

As a matter of fact, coaches must be able to understand and address the generational gaps in sports, to get the best of teams of Baby Boomers or Generations X, Y and Z.

As reported by the article “…An effective understanding of the different values and perspectives of our younger generations will better facilitate communication between coaches and their players as well as decrease the capacity for conflict. In order to achieve this, we must first acknowledge the issues that the emerging generation has brought to the fore.”

The coach's role in multigenerations' sport teams can be very useful  from a marketing perspective.

We encourage that you, marketers or advertisers read this article to learn more about who is, and what wants Gen Y. However this should not be limited to understand Gen Y only: each generation should do her best to understand the needs and wants of every other generation of consumers.

With this mindset, the learning it provides could find a rich application in the marketing sphere!

Read more:

Engaging with the new generations, published by Mark McCrindle, BSC (Psychology), MA, QPMR, Social Researcher,

Issue: Volume 30 Number 1,

see -  www.ausport.gov.au/sportscoachmag/role/understanding_and_engaging_with_the_new_generations

Image - www.facebook.com/pages/Generation-Y-Sports/135216339860043

The Future of Advertising

I truly am fortunate to be a marketing major at this time of my life.  With the internet and social networking already having such a huge impact on brand-consumer relationships when it is still restively new, we are currently living in the first stepping stone for what will be the future of marketing.

With traditional media advertising, the central goal was straight forward.  That would be find a target, find an outlet to target these people, and relay a message that is memorable.  It was limited in that a message was constricted to limited ad space and commercial times.  Even if you had that ad space and time which was required to get off every singe detail on the message, people's attention span is not that long.  Traditional media is also limited in that the message only goes one way.  Now, information can travel both ways where a company can produce a message, and viewers can upload response messages as well.  Never was there ever so much interactivity between consumer and company EVAR!

The reason why I'm excited is not because it's something new and companies would be looking for younger marketers and companies will probably be looking for marketers of my age group to compete with this new, but competitive market.  Not entirely at least.  What I am most excited about is the new found interaction with all of  these different platforms.

With traditional media, sought out content and advertising were two clear and distinctive things.  In television, one part were called programs, while the others were called commercials.  Now with more interactions between brand and consumer, they do not have to be like this.

 I'm not just talking about just having an internet/social media version of a product or service just to have one.  The real creativity from this kind of marketing is to seamlessly integrate the connectivity between the brand, social media and hardware devices     

dont mind the crude Photoshop skillz

What we start to see from companies is creating  a relationship with it's consumers like never before.  A good example of this what live television programs do with twitter.  Now viewers can participate in the show itself #straightfromtheirhome.  Not only does this create buzz from the those people's follow list, but also creates a relationship with each viewer which gets them more interested in the product.  If you really think about it, the possibilities are endless on what you can mix and match social medias with brand message, and interactivity with consumers.


With evolution of selective media, the term "marketing" will be redefined.  I am very excited


read more about the limitations of mobile marketing at: http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/33098.asp and http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/30997.asp

Why Gen Y won’t buy what you’re selling

In previous posts, we discussed the difficulty that Gen Y might have to reach a decision to buy. We pointed out also the inefficiency of several marketing campaigns that did not meet properly these generation’s needs.

The present article suggests that we first try to understand  ‘what’  Gen Yers’ expectations are on social media.

Mostly, the article makes amazing statements: Gen Yers “trust their peers first and their parents second”, “hate to be sold anything”, “actively research prices and read reviews before making a purchase”, “expect exceptional service”, “seek to do business with ethical, environmental companies”, and “value customization”.

As a matter of fact, this set of information may be quite useful to cautious marketers, 

however this is not enough!

As a matter of fact, the article goes far above, and proposes specific actions likely to be perceived positively by Gen Y:

-         enhance simple messages emphasizing the important contributions brought by Gen Y in purchasing your brands;

-          share with them something that they like, and they may give it back to you by spreading a valuable word-of-mouth of your products and services, and

-          help them create visions through your products and services; it is important that they feel being part of something bigger than themselves; in this respect, environmental considerations, life quality or visions of better life are topics Gen Y usually likes.

Hopefully this will help Gen Y making buying decisions more easily.

Read more: Why Gen Y won’t buy what you’re selling, BY SARAH SLADEK, XYZ UNIVERSITY, October 9, 2012 - see http://xyzuniversity.com/2012/10/why-gen-y-wont-buy-what-youre-selling/

Free Fall to viewership

on October 2012, Red Bull launched their, “Longest Free-fall” ad campaign.    For those who haven’t seen it, it is a Red Bull sponsored video where a free faller “balloons his way up to the stratosphere and jumps down in an astronaut suite breaking the world record for longest free fall.  For those who have not seen it, link at the bottom.  Why would the brand, Red Bull, sponsor such an expensive, and out of the ordinary campaign?    

no bad red bull....

As seen on the displayed table, the Red Bull brand became the undisputed, most viewed brand within the month of October where as last month, it did not even place.  About 3x more views than it’s runner up, and about 7.5x more viewership than Barack Obama one month before the 2012 presidential elections, it’s interest is in no doubt from its shocking free fall campaign.  How did something like that work?

                    The article, “Why Red Bull's space jump was worth the risk” on iMediaConnection.com talks about how the company “Red Bull,” marketing plan does not necessarily focus on setting up their own ad space unlike traditional media which pay for the amount of traffic they receive.  The article talks about how Red Bull uses its funds in order to own an “idea.”  “By owning any idea, brands become a source for audiences.”   This idea is amplified with the use of targeted media such as Social Networks.  Searches related to this idea will be, more or less, connected to your brand.  A viewer does not have to know about a brand in order for its content to be displayed in their search windows, or being viewed.   If a person were to keep browsing content for this specific idea, they are to eventually land on the brand itself.  With the interst generated from the videos itself, viewers are also more willing to share these videos with other consumers (viral marketing.)  In a sense, the buzz generated through owning an idea markets itself.  



links- 
Articel source:
http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/33152.asp?imcid=nav
Red Bull viral video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHtvDA0W34I

B to Y: understand your key customers!

Companies are making a lot of efforts to understand who their key and happy customers are today.

However the “plus” is when they also anticipate the future consumption trends, 

and VISA seems to be one of these visionary companies.

As mentioned in the article, “Gen Ys are everywhere” and “…as they advance in their careers and lives, so will their importance to all brands, in all verticals.”

The article further points out the importance of Gen Y psychographics:

“By 2030, their numbers will exceed all other consumer groups combined.”

This makes of Gen Y - a first-choice consumers’ category - today and tomorrow.

Why? because companies know that first movers, who can better decrypt that category, will have the best chances to get a competitive advantage in the long-run.

However the challenge remains high!

This generation is different from their parents or grand-parents more especially in their motivations and decisions to BUY.

As matter of fact, a company may need assistance of social media “Y-nsiders” to properly understand that complexity.

As mentioned in the article, the overall question is about

“…turning wants into needs by educating Gen Y buyers on the necessity of such purchases…”,

“… convincing them of your offering’s specific and unique attributes…”, and

“…making it relevant to their lives…”

Gen Ys, are you ready to BUY?

Read more: Y it’s different: Understanding gen Y Consumers, Ways Brands Can reach them, and how Visa Can help, by Jonathan Salem Baskin – see http://usa.visa.com/download/merchants/marketing-to-gen-y-how-visa-can-help.pdf

Ever so Changing market

AIM lol remember this?

When being an internet marketer, it's not good enough to be comfortable with what is currently available to us. I feel that social networking, and the internet in general is far from its peak.  More people would be even more reliant on these services as the internet evolves.  As the article, "3 Ways to Stop Wasting Time on Social Media" stated, "Since social media managers now have to do more with either the same or fewer resources, they have to create efficiencies in their current processes."   In the globally competitive internet industry, if we marketers or social media managers don’t follow these trends, we won’t be able to keep up with the upcoming consumer demands.   

all i see on twitter

My point is that when a person is typically on the internet, they can experience the changes or the internet at their own pace.  When you’re a marketer, you don’t get that luxury.  You need to be as versatile as the internet.  Up to date on the current media outlets and opportunities the internet provides for you.  For the longest time, I always held off on joining Twitter.  It’s not because I didn’t know what it was, but it was more of the fact that Twitter isn’t the way I wanted to present myself.  It came of as an attention seeking outlet so I never bothered.  If you want a better idea of how i felt, click the link below.  Sure that was ignorant and bias of me to assume but the point is that I left out a potential market as a marketing major because of my own personal feeling towards a matter.  While I sat there disinterested in the service, it has become such a large phenomenon that companies find it hard not to utilize.  Sure, I still feel like the majority of Twitter is people spouting whatever’s in their brain #noOneCares but part of the job is to be open to whatever.  It’s an occupational hazard.  

links:
quote source

http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/33029.asp
real life twitter: College Humor
http://www.collegehumor.com/video/4005047/real-life-twitter