SEOh My F**cking God!

Obama, Apple and Ice Cream

Keynote: Obama, Apple and Ice Cream - Building Brand Passion Among Millennials

This presentation was overseen by Samantha Skey, Executive VP, Strategic Marketing, Alloy Media + Marketing. The focus was on the panel of six “Millenials,” who can be generally defined as people born between 1980-2000. At this presentation, the Millenials were between 18 and 21 years old. Our panel was made up of Carlos, Emily, Dash, Brianna, Joe, and Nicole.

To open the keynote, each panelist was presented with an image of either the infamous Barack Obama “change” poster, the icy-white, beveled Apple logo, or a carton of Ben&Jerry’s ice cream. They were then asked to say the first thing that came to their minds.

The discussion opened, as had already become a trend at ad:tech, with Tuesday’s election. A huge amount of young people turned out to support the campaign. This fact led to a discussion of “Obama-nomics,” which was defined by Ms Skey as…

Obama-nomics: reach (access + utility) = cause adoption

The idea and/or hope is that this method lends itself to development of brand passion. The suggestion is that Obama’s campaign was hugely successful with younger people, so can we leverage the same principles in every-day marketing?

The majority of the presentation was questions being asked of the panel. So I’ll run down some of the more interesting points:

• The majority of panelists watch their television online via services like Hulu. Exceptions include top favorite shows, breaking news and sporting event. Although most agreed that they use Twitter for the latter two items.
• If you could only have one gadget, what would it be? Responses were limited to phone, laptop, and iPod. Most responded “phone,” and the reason given was staying in contact with friends and family.
• Is there anything you think phones shouldn’t do? Most replied “no,” but at least one person suggested that phones are too complicated already.
• How do you use your phones? Primarily texting, and talking is secondary.
• What are some of your favorite TV commercials? Target, Subway, Sony Bravia, anything with good dancing and/or choreography, Sonic, NBA, Nike. The most common reasons given for enjoying a commercial were humor and relatability.
• Where do you notice that you see or watch the most ads? Internet, the subway, on the street, Facebook. Also important are art/aesthetics and any ad that carries a special offer or deal (e.g. free prints at Shutterfly and Snapfish). Most agreed that Facebook ads are probably the most useful because they are so highly targeted and seem unobtrusive.
• Polls show that 49% of Millenials say that they like the appearance of social responsibility. But this “green” trend carries a risk. There is a backlash against compaines who spend money on “green” campaigns because they are trying to cleanse their reputations as polluters.

At this point, I actually started to feel sort of weird, like I was at a zoo. Here were all of these people in the audience in their 30s, 40s and 50s, and we were all dissecting everything these kids had to say. It made me giggle just a little bit to think that everyone in the room was furiously writing down every last word that these kids uttered.

The discussion turned to a group called “The Reachables.” This group consumes more media than any other group, but ironically, they are the hardest to reach. Here are some stats on The Reachables:

• Willing to consume advertisements if they accompany content that is cheaper or free than ad-free content.
• 62% report learning about new and/or popular brands via advertising channels.

The most interesting take-away for me was that we, as advertisers, can learn a lot from Millenials as they shape the future of social interaction. But the panel’s concept of privacy was virtually non-existent. Most expressed dismay about the fact that their personal information or photos could be used by the company that owns the service on which their information appears. They saw it as an invasion of privacy. I guess they’ll be some of my future reputation management clients.

-Drew

Tags: ad:tech new york