Re: When It Comes to Profiling Consumers, You Have to Kick the Buckets

Response to John T Peters' article at AdAge.com, "When It Comes to Profiling Consumers, You Have to Kick the Buckets."

I appreciate what I think the majority of the article is saying. while I do think that consumer profiles play a large role in ideating a strategic plan, I also worry that large components of nuances are missed when data is compiled to form these profiles. I believe that this is partly because I don't trust most people's ability to play devil's advocate when mining data and I don't trust that all factors have been incorporated and calculated. Because of this fear, I remain critical -- but open minded.

I agree with the writer in that we are consuming via the age of chameleons. I believe that within each "consumer profile" lives mini segments of 'profiles.' And similar to what John T Peters describes, it is because we are exposed to everything (and not nearly as likely to be niche) that we have become chameleons. For example, to Peter's point, within the construct of Pandora radio segments, a Tupac listener, may also have a Lady-Gaga station (sure, it's possible?). These are not two completely different people, this is one example of today's chameleon that's been regularly exposed to multiple genres. 

I think the request is to recognize consumers as such and not to jump the gun on creating a profiled stereotype based on our initial find. While we do recognize the diversity for tastes within ourselves as we compile consumer personas, from a strategic stand-point, we still do have to find patterns and trends. We need to build some kind of insight to make a move. And we realize that It's difficult to capture everything.

I believe the key is to really recognize that these personas, or profiles, are merely a top-level oversight and that they should not be seen as hard and fast rules. I completely agree with the author here. But the errors of execution come from misinterpretation and accepting everything at face value. 

I would apply this knowledge of using consumer profiles to generational stereotypes. For those reading into generational stereotypes, that do not recognize that these are not standard personalities and that there are existing mini-segments, it's important to start realizing that these are merely far-removed trends. Because if you don't view them as so, you may start losing out on major opportunities. 

Another example comes to mind about the multitude of consumer profiles that exist within one person. While analyzing the trends of response to various emails in list A, we may find that they respond well with aesthetic design and concise copy. Despite this discovery, we never jump to a conclusion to form a standard promotion to group A. "Always send colorful emails to A people." Luckily, we didn't. With over 52% crossover to another list, we found that in list B and list C, lengthy, linear content far outperformed in these lists, composing of nearly the same people. Probably not the best example, but as John mentions, different information is absorbed via different means. 

The take-away here, is that these should be seen as a high-level oversight of trends and not to be read as hard and fast rules, as there are usually several small factors that are not included in the data. 

I guess there are two different instances here. One is the consumer profile that you build based on historical trends. In which you should not create hard and fast rules, but use as a guide. And then you have your buyer personas, in which you have your targeted marketing group of ideal people that you envision buying your product.

2014, The Progression of Social Media Marketing.

How Important is Social for 2014?

In 2014, social media marketing implementation strategies are expected to grow substantially. As it does, it becomes more important for us to arm ourselves with as much insight as possible into what this means for social media strategy, innovation, engagement and most importantly: ROI.

Before we dive in, there is a huge flaw in the current association with "social media marketing" that needs to go away. And that is, letting the term "social" restrict your use of these platforms to their full potential. In this blog, The Dirty Little Secret About Social Media, Howard Pyle talks about this issue and the negative connotation some Social Media Managers have expressed about their titles.

He says, "How can it be that social is the most powerful transformative force in modern business, yet social experts are desperate to demonstrate that they're bigger than what their job descriptions imply?"

Even if you are not currently involved with the social media aspect of marketing, it becomes more important to begin implementing social media strategies across multiple distribution channels, and using it to reinforce your messaging and better align your goals. Why?

"40% of smartphone owners check their social
media pages first thing when they wake up"
-socialnetworkingwatch.com

According to Google's blog: starting from 2011 and moving forward, social media shares will place much more weight on validity of content and search engine rankings than it has in the past. Hubspot, (an amazing hub for content marketers) says that, "when someone distributes your content [via social media], it makes your content relevant in the eyes of Google. Along with Hubspot, other companies have taken the lead in better understanding ways to optimize their social media pages.

Knowing the importance of shared social media content, the New York Times posted an article recently with research findings on how to get more shares in social media. The article explains that social media users want to create a positive image of themselves by sharing upbeat stories. In other words, positive social media pieces drive traffic while posts that elicit emotion, drives shares.

This means, that social media is so much more than generating random conversations and posting announcements.

The Movement in 2014

Visual Content

According to Forbes, social media marketing will become a necessity, especially as it becomes an even stronger pillar contributing to search engine optimization. The difference in 2014, is the expected shift to visual content over text. This includes images and the sharability of six-second micro videos. Jayson Demers (CEO of AudienceBloom) and many others predict a large growth in visual content platforms such as Slideshare, Pinterest, Tumblr and Instagram. The key to utilizing these sites properly will be 'keeping "sharability" top of mind in creating content for these platforms.

Dedicated Social Staff?

Forbes also predicts a shift of corporations moving from assigning social media marketing tasks to individual to creating a dedicated social manager, team or department. Although, many recent articles (from this month and last month Quartz Sept 2013 and CNN Fortune Oct 2013) have also talked about the death of the Social Media Manager title.

Influencer Growth

Thought leaders and Influencers. Connecting bloggers to brands is not only expected to grow in 2014, it is also expected to distribute differently. Instead of focusing on posting within their own blog, writers will utilize high profile sites to post and distribute their content. Businesses may spend less time creating content and more time reaching out to influencers to guest post, or ghost write. The reason influencers are on the rise? In 2014, exposure will be everything!



With all of these shifts combined, deeper content is expected to grow. Social media story telling is on the rise. An interesting stat in social growth, is the shift of social users. According to stats from www.stateofdigital.com, the middle aged group (45-54 years old) is the fastest growing segment in social media space. It may be wise to consider your target segments when communicating on these various platforms. And if you are targeting millennials under the age of 21, consider using image sharing sites like Instagram as these are expected to grow faster than others for this group specifically.

RE: AdAge article: Are boomer CMOs missing the millennial marketing opportunity?

This is in response to an editorial piece in AdAge.

I disagree with most of the comments claiming that CMOs are missing the millennial marketing opportunity. I think the issue is either that: there is a haphazard execution derived from millennial insights, or that millennial marketing tends to be based on joe blogger's theories and/or personal anecdotes, instead of data based insights.

The first commenter leads off by explaining that he works at a government agency. Then he goes on to say that his CMO (a baby boomer) is often completely missing the mark and that [boomers] are not adapting to the current marketing environment. -- I don't think that this is an issue with baby boomer CMOs, this is an issue with working at a government agency.

I agree with Aaron Endre's comment. He says, "we need to redefine millennial. Someone who was born in 1980 remembers a world without the internet [while] kids born in the late 1990s have an entirely different view of the world around them." Aaron also asks for millennial purveyors to bring more analysis into their discussions: analytics, A/B testing and data.

I did read another article that says the overall aim is to have generation titles span over two decades. So re-evaluating may not happen. And apparently even for the baby boomer generation, the generation dates are still debated. This is why reading into generational definitions are so absurd.

I think Ann-Marie Kovacs brings an interesting point of view in mentioning the irony in the article — as she feels that baby boomers are actually being neglected even though "their spend is 10 times what the millennial spend is."

Scientific Method for Marketing

Using stats as insights to improve your campaign

Use stats as a tool, to provide better insights on how to optimize your current campaigns.

We are in an amazing time for marketing. We have more tools available for measuring our campaign successes than ever before. We are no longer in the realm of print media, so why behave like it? Why are there still so many marketers that theorize, and act on knee-jerk reactions to campaign failures, than those who want to test speculations and leverage data insights?

We should use data as the tool that it is - not as a benchmark measurement - but to help us learn from failures, better optimize campaigns and far surpass the status quo.

SOPA

So...I may have misread the bill - but it sounded like this bill was focused more on corporations suing other corporations - than it was on consumer lawsuits?? If that is the case, then this 'bill' sounds like it is just fostering corporate monopolization? At this point, I'm more concerned about SOPAs effect on our (already crappy) job economy.

If corporations earn rights to black list companies due to even minor potential copyright infringements, companies lose business = are forced to shutdown = people lose jobs. If you oppose SOPA, here is a link of 'supporting' legislators to "blacklist"

Also... GoDaddy.com, for example, initially supported SOPA until it lost 72,000 domains in less than a week as a response to boycotts. That persuaded them to change their minds.

Sooo that's just another option for persuading the supporters. It's all about financial gains. Here is a good video with details on how broad the SOPA bill is.

Of course, what you read and what you see must be taken with a grain of salt. As the end of the video states that Obama's stance is in support of SOPA. When in fact, Obama has publicly stated that he does not support SOPA, while the rest of the administration stressed the importance for Obama to remain neutral.

Hollywood Disappointed With President Obama's SOPA Stance
www.pcworld.com
Hollywood moguls are reportedly disappointed with the White House's stance on SOPA and PIPA.

Generation Y Stereotypes

The writer of the article The Kids Are Actually Sort of Alright talks about the high rate of youth unemployment all over the world and makes some interesting points in evaluating the cause for Gen Y stereotypes.

She says that although we are an ambitious generation, we no longer have the same encouragement and support that we had in the realm of school and family home. She attributes the common stereotype for Gen-Y 'entitlement' to the generations prior as parents, with trying too hard to 'provide' for us what they didn't have. The writer of the article refers to us as the "trophy" generation, in that, we have been entered into every competition, sport, public service, etc. thus potentially having instilled this false idea of encouragement. When reality hits, this meant taking us from the encouraging familial environment, to the harsh realities of the world as it actually is. But doesn't EVERY college student face this when entering the workforce? Other articles discuss the shock Gen Y faces after being told that "one thing" will subsequently lead to "another." Which in turn fostered a process for expectations that aren't exactly always realistic. For example stating that, "college subsequently leads to 'X income' or 'X jobs,'" which immediately deemed untrue as the majority of Gen Y college graduates instead find themselves at home, with debt, and at a loss for jobs due to a lack of experience. This environment has led some of our generation to feel "entitled" and the other 'some' of our generation to feel 'cheated.'

I was lucky. My parents instilled a high level of expectation, trust and self-reliance that kept me realistic grounded. With little money, my siblings and I had to work hard because we knew where we'd be if we didn't push forward with full force. I've been working since I was 15 and have bought my own clothes, school supplies and (at the time) pagers.
As I analyze the group of my friends that had more financial support: assistance paying for tuition, insurance, books, etc., I noticed that after graduation, some of them have moved back in with parents, some are jobless, and some are returning to school. This is not to hint at anything - as this isn't "ipso facto," but the significant difference being, I don't blame them for feeling entitled after what their parents enabled them to do, promised them for their futures, and gave them for their free education - or free rent. Really, it isn't about socioeconomics, it's about parental values and whether that delivered... "entitlement."

There's a prediction for the generation of our children that says, we'll make them slave for every little thing as a backlash to what was so easily handed to our generation. While our parents' generation will be known as "enablers" and "helicopter-parents" - Gen Y's parenting style could either sink deeper into this abyss of over protection, child ego inflation; or go on the other end of the spectrum and harshly instill tough love.

Noreen Malone proves to be a very good writer. I'm not in agreement, nor disagreement with her article referenced above, as it does deliver some interesting perspectives into examining 'the how' and 'why' with regard to Gen Y. I think a bigger issue lies within some of these other writers that are so extreme in their rally against Millennials or Gen Y. 

First, I wouldn't necessarily trust these writers as credible sources. As I can only assume that their opinions and theories come from having very little interaction or exposure to Generation Y. Also, there is likely already a preconceived notion that exists when these other generations interact with Gen Y, that would clout judgement. This does not discount all anti-Millennial articles, BUT If you want a truly accurate opinion of generation comparison, ask a group of people that actually deal with a wide range of Millennial personalities everyday, like people who work in higher education.

Be logical obviously. People who work in counseling will have more exposure to a select type of Millennial personalities - as well as people who work with the more proactive individuals such as Student Government offices. Obviously these opinions would be tainted, stating that Millennials were predominantly aggressive versus self-pitying.

Second, again be logical. I read a few articles claiming that Gen Y is solely just a generation of people living at home. Yes, I could say the same about the Gen Xers that I know that are experiencing the same job economy as these Millennials are --- the economy that apparently these writers aren't so keen to. This also isn't the smartest criticism considering that the majority of commentators consider Millennials to be under the age of 30 and recent graduates. Think about that.

I'll tell you a story about age group comparison: I once worked with a guy who would often just regurgitate what he hears and reads (with lack of critical thinking applied). He raved about the fickleness of the Millennial generation because 'the articles all said,' that Millennials don't know what they want to do as their career.  He often compared us to Steve Jobs saying, "Look at Steve Jobs, he knows exactly what he wants to do." This is the same guy that used Zuckerberg as a point of reference for Millennials, claiming that our generation was incapable of creativity and could only enhance existing products. He said, "Your generation cannot create. Think of Zuckerburg for example, he can only enhance what already existed, but Steve Jobs created ipods." This argument is invalid in an unbelievable amount of ways, but I won't digress.  Let me just say, that if you are going to have the arrogance to put down an entire group of people, then logically you ought to compare two groups in that same category: Generation X in their twenties to Generation Y in their twenties. You don't compare people in their twenties to people in their forties, and you especially don't compare two individual, 20-percenters of the population. The point of generalizing is to compare averages.

I think that facing the "harsh realities" of the "real world" is necessary. I don't deny that plenty of Millennials, including myself, didn't (or doesn't) need a dose of reality.  Obviously, no one should feel "entitled" to anything that isn't also earned. And in the lessons of comedian Louis C.K, even if you think that you've earned something, it still doesn't mean that you're entitled to anything. Though, I don't think that companies catering to the expectations of us entering into the workforce helps remove us from our expectations. But I also don't disagree with the idea for a more well-balanced work life and the ability to feel more connected to our jobs. This doesn't just entice Millennial employees, but it improves the work environment for all employees in general. And I do believe that it's time for the workforce to change.

Here's some perspective... As a very involved college student, my life was the Student Activities office. We encouraged campus involvement because it meant you had a deeper investment, which made you feel more connected to the campus, contributing to higher grades, quicker graduation, career success, etc. So why wouldn't it also make sense that companies engage their employees in this same facet?

An article titled, More Firms Bow to Generation Y's Demands, makes some great statements in which it discusses companies neglecting boomers in order to accommodate to Gen Y. It also explains the reasons why companies are adjusting to Millennial's ideals versus shaking their reality. With one reason being, "Millennials' willingness to work around the clock once they commit." One comment in the article, mentioned by Kevin Coyne, a business strategist and professor at Emory University, states something about the Gen Y stereotype that is clearly (and often) getting overlooked. He says that most of these Millennial stereotypes are not a characterization of a generation, really, they are a characterization of people in their twenties. Think again about my old coworker, the guy who said, 'the Millennial generation is a generation that doesn't know what they want to do as their career.'

I'll end this writing with some great food for thought...

The Millennial generation was raised by a generation of divorced families. Despite this, our parents worked hard to teach us the importance of family value. They may have spoiled us with protection and coddling, but their aim was also to provide us with experiences, by exposing us to numerous activities and sports. This defined for us the possibilities of work/life balance and the value of our time with family, friends and life's experiences. Strongly take into consideration that the Millennial generation is the closest to their parents over all other generations, which were otherwise notoriously rebellious during their twenties. We can only pass this value down to our own children, as it seems highly likely that WE will be robbed of retirement and social security, unlike our criticizing generations.  AND very similar to all prior generations during their twenties, WE hope to represent a new generation of change in values - to simply change the "American dream." But our hope, is that this dream includes ideals for a greener environment, a more tolerant culture, a more cohesive family, deeper invested work lives and fuller life experiences.