16 January 2009 Consider The Pot Stirred
To clarify;
+ I am not your stereotypical Gen Y.
+ Traditional media can still be effective for Gen Y.
If anything, I’m an innovator and an early adopter of technology. Most teenagers don’t know what a blog is, let alone write one. Most of the popular haven’t heard the term RSS.
And I certainly do not believe traditional media is dead to Gen Y. My point was more so about the business models, and how people keep trying to push them on a generation that won’t accept them.
The post was deliberately provocative and certainly a conversation starter. Like every other self obsessed Gen Y, I do like to stir the pot every so often and earn me some attention.
If anything, I wanted people to take out of that post the fact that there are people like me, who do not consume traditional media at all. So if you’re a marketer who wants to target me specifically, heritage media is a no go. The other point to take out is that in a generation or two’s time, there’s going to be a lot more people like me and the current business models are just not going to fly.
I don’t know how to finish this post, so I’m going to throw it over to you guys. SMS 0400 949 184 either “A” or “B” to decide how I can best finish this post.
Option A
Most importantly, brands need to start getting it right today. You can’t win a marathon if you’re only just learning to crawl.Option B
Most importantly, brands need to start getting it right today. You can’t land on the Moon if you’re only just inventing fire.
Paul
Posted at January 16, 2009 8:22am, 16 JanuaryDude, I am loving the response your last posts have ignited.
What you have enforced is that fact that under 25s are the biggest consumers of media, whether that be old media, new media or in nearly all cases (aside from yourself) a heading (and often parallel) mixture of the two.
Business/marketing models which concentrate on a single type of media are destined to failure as you can’t reach critical mass when media consumption is so wide and diverse.
The balanced media plan is Marketing 101 and to effectively reach young people in ‘their’ media you have to put this concept on steroids.
As for marketeers catching up with ‘digital’ young people, they are already there; they just have difficultly fluidly integrating it in to the rest of their campaign. Online is not a silo.
m a t t b o w e n
Posted at January 16, 2009 8:55am, 16 JanuaryYep well done Zac, you certainly ignited the passion in your last post. Kudos.
Paul makes a good point. Its the businesses who throw all of their ad budget into heritage media that will fail. But most media strategists would never do this, and hence why they can still maintain great results from such media. What I’ve seen happen in my budgets, even over the past 12 months, has been a consistently stronger investment in non-traditional media. And this will continue to happen. The only difficulty with the digital media buy is the pace in which it moves, so the website or social media channel that reached your audience last month, might not reach them this. And it is this very factor that has a lot of marketers scared because they are now spending twice as long in the planning stages of the buy.
Nudge Marketing
Posted at January 16, 2009 6:43pm, 16 JanuaryWhilst reading your “stirring the pot” post I forgot to stir the pot… Now dinner is ruined, thanks Zac!
Damian Damjanovski
Posted at January 16, 2009 7:27pm, 16 JanuaryNice one getting people started on this topic mate.
I think above everything else, you, myself, other Gen-Y geeks and bloggers, are a caricature of our entire generation. Whilst we may not necessarily accurately represent a cross section of everyone, we do accentuate the most striking characteristics of our generation, and you’ve done that perfectly.
Cheers,
D
Zac Martin
Posted at January 16, 2009 7:45pm, 16 January@ Damian
Absolutely love the caricature analogy. That sums up exactly what I’ve been trying to do (even if I didn’t know it at the time)!
Damian Damjanovski
Posted at January 16, 2009 7:49pm, 16 January@Zac
Yeah, it’s one of the best ways to explain to others why you know what you’re talking about, even though you’re a sample size of one.
Feel free to use and redistribute… Attribution always appreciated 😉
Stan Lee
Posted at January 16, 2009 11:47pm, 16 JanuaryHow many self obsessed gen Y social media types does it take to change a lightbulb?
None.
They tell their mum the light doesn’t work and she gets dad to change it.
Anonymous
Posted at January 27, 2009 3:54pm, 27 January“If anything, I’m an innovator”
love it