Marketing to Millennials: Are you sure you want to?
Is this push short-sighted? There's not a doubt in my mind that what is perceived as trendy, fashionable, or “in” is influenced largely upon the opinions of the younger generation. That being said, Millennials are one of the smaller demo. groups. Not only that, but they also have much less buying power than young professionals and established businessmen and women. Jean Twenge, author of the book Generation Me, credits Millennials with possessing the traits of confidence and tolerance, however, they also exude a certain narcissism and self-entitlement.
Should you market to Millennials? Yes…but as a part of a broader, more holistic approach…perhaps to paint a picture of a product as being trendy that will ultimately have a trickle-down effect on older, more affluent demos.
Super Bowl vs Olympics vs World Cup
This is the epitome of comparing apples to oranges. The Super Bowl is a single-day television event, largely isolated to just the United States. The Winter Olympics, while international, doesn't have the same kind of viewership that the Summer Olympics has, possibly because it largely excludes countries that don't participate in winter sports. The Winter Olympics also has the advantage of putting up large numbers because it is televised on multiple stations that showcase multiple events over the course of a couple weeks.
The World Cup trumps even the Olympics. It is a month-long event that takes place in the summer and televises the world's most popular game to an international audience. Corporate sponsorships are priced ~$75 million per sponsorship. That's nearly 20 times the cost of a Super Bowl ad, BUT this includes a lot of bonus spots and a confirmed number of spots that eclipses 400. This puts increased pressure on agencies and corporations to keep their message fresh because no one wants to be diluted with the same commercial over 400 times for a month.
The Olympics offers more competitive rates over a sustained period, but ratings will likely diminish based on time of day, event, and so forth…Figure skating may not appeal to a younger audience, whereas snowboard superpipe may not appeal to an old crowd.
The trick to determining whether or not to advertise during one of these highly visible sporting events is to do some thorough cost analysis and opportunity cost analysis and decide which suits your target demographic best. Will the impression you get with a Super Bowl ad give you the frequency you want? Will the frequency you get with a World Cup or Olympics ad reach the number of people you want it to reach (think Croatia vs Cameroon in the WC or Curling for the Olympics)?
Regardless of what happens, the CPM will continue to rise and so will the price for a single spot (as high as $10 million/ 30 seconds for the Super Bowl by 2040). Why does this happen? It's not just because of the VOLUME of people reached, but the quality of ads increases on the world's biggest stages. During the Super Bowl, people don't turn the channel, the viewership of advertisements actually EXCEEDS that of the game itself! Exciting times indeed….
New Fall Season Changes Media Buying
New fall shows, mean new ratings. New ratings mean new places to spend your money and a new audience to see your product or service. The new fall season will definitely shake up prime time, although I don't foresee CBS relinquishing the cobra clutch they have on Thursday nights. I encourage everyone to get excited, step out of your box, and break with the norm a little. You might be glad you did.
For those of you who advertise, rest assured that Mad Men Marketing will be their every step of the way, monitoring viewing habits with NSA-like precision, down to what people DVR. We are the only agency in the market to implement Rentrak, a service that gives us an extensive breakdown of what viewers watch based on innumerable sub-categories and demographics. While Nielsen utilizes an archaic journal-entry style system with less than a thousand people in the Jacksonville market participating (less than 1/8 of one percent), Rentrak uses 68,000 set top boxes that you're already using to gather data (roughly 8 percent). This is what sets us apart among agencies, being well-informed of where to spend YOUR money on advertising and being ahead of the curve with a research-oriented approach.
The Curse of Steve Jobs’ Ghost
All that being said, the company has failed time and again to innovate in recent years. QUICK…name your favorite Apple innovation in the last two years (don't worry, I'll wait). Do you hear the sound of that void of nothingness? The great innovative company may have lost its panache when Steve Jobs left this mortal plane. Year after year and quarter after quarter, they rehash the same devices with upgraded hardware to stay competitive in markets that THEY CREATED. Not only are they not leading innovation anymore, but the price point on their merchandise is far too high and their software is incompatible with everything on the market. This means that Samsung, HTC, Motorola, and all the other heavy hitters can crank out the latest and greatest smartphones and/or tablets while implementing Google's Android OS. The only telecommunications device that uses Apple's operating system is Apple and that's why everyone waits 2 years for a new phone that isn't even competitive with what's out there right now. I miss you Apple, so this is my plea for your return to normalcy, to innovation, and to listening to what customers want and being ahead of the curve.
The Future of eSports
The greatest achievement of the International 3 is that the prize money was entirely fan-raised. DOTA 2 (Defense of the Ancients 2), is a sequel to a popular modification to the Blizzard game Warcraft 3, with Valve developing the successor. DOTA 2 is a free-to-play game, with micro-transactions for cosmetic and non-essential items. This payment model has become an increasingly popular trend in the gaming industry, and while risky, huge profits have been made by game companies when implemented correctly. For the third tournament, Valve decided to test the popularity of the event with an in-game item for sale called the Compendium.
The Compendium gave a number of cosmetic items, as well as a way to interact in the tournament with a betting system, information on the teams and players, and up to date statistics. In addition to the Compendium, Valve put rewards for the number of money raised with different prizes once money goals were achieved. The total money raised by players was over 2.9 million dollars by 290 thousand people purchasing the 10 dollar Compendium, all of which was given to the top 8 teams. This made for the greatest payout ever in a single eSports event. The gamble has paid off for Valve. With the prize money raised, Valve could focus its money on the event which raised production values to new heights. The International 3 is proof positive that eSports are viable sports, and evidence of how effective crowd sourcing can be.