NYT has done a piece on “the millennials”, which sounds like a bad sitcom but in this case refers to those born between 1980 and 2000…”By 2010, they will outnumber both baby boomers and Gen-X’ers among those 18 to 49 – the crucial consumers for all kinds of businesses, from automakers and clothing companies to Hollywood, record labels and the news media.”
The thing about this group is their “group mentality”, according to those who label such things.
“We think that the single largest differentiator in this generation from previous generations is the social network that is people’s lives, the part of it that technology enables,” said Jack McKenzie, a senior vice president at Frank N. Magid Associates. “What’s hard to measure, and what we’re trying to measure, is the impact of groupthink, of group mentality, and the tendency of what we might call the democratization of social interaction and how that changes this generation’s relationship with almost everything they come in contact with.”
This means that word-of-mouth (or word-of-email or whatever) is more influencial than traditional advertising, which causes problems for marketers. Marketing methods involving word-of-mouth — while being around longer than most people have been alive — still have a stigma, as Creative Commons found out when it accepted an offer of help from BzzAgents.
The NYT article goes on with the new methods used to attract the new audience, most of which have been talked about on MocoNews already: “Advertisers and media and technology companies, mindful that young consumers have migrated away from the traditional carriers of their messages, have begun to find new ways to reach them. They are creating advertising and short videos for mobile phones, for instance, cell networks with dedicated game channels, and $1.99 TV programs to download to iPods and PC’s.”
This goes hand-in-hand with getting content in front of people. The best way to do this is to have friends recommend it — Buffy didn’t take off (in Australia) until people started talking about it…first two people, then three…four…everyone in the office.
The answers still aren’t obvious — but will hopefully be clearer by the end of this year…
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