Marketing to Gen Y

I wrote the words Marketing to Gen Y expecting that only a few results would turn out. I was quite wrong. A lot of people write about it, and it is more of a big deal than I actually thought it was. I think being a part of the “Millennials” makes it harder to see how difficult it is to get our attention. The first article I clicked on was the best. The article was simple and clear. Also the author said everything I always say, the “boomers” should stop whining about their own creations, and actually embrace this new, energetic, together and innovative generation.

To reach for the Gen Ys is a hard job I must agree. We don’t pay attention to outdoors or signs, most of us don’t read newspapers, not even magazines. Everything is available on-line. That is the most important place to target when thinking about this generation. Personally I still see a lot of television, and good commercials always catch my attention. In the article the author mentions the best ways to get the gen y attention and he keeps saying: stop marketing to them, talk to them.

Online

On line the greatest creation I have seen is the million dollar webpage. Alex Tew, a 21 year old student created a webpage where he would sell a pixel for a dollar, and he completed the one million pixels he had available. It is a smart and simple idea, I am not sure if it works well but still it was innovative, created by a millennial to millennials. Every website that is frequently accessed by people in our generation had a lot of ads on the side for example going to people.com at first looks like there is no signs of a ad, but just click on the main story or pictures and you will get all kinds of ad right on the side, Sprint selling products for people with “tight budgets”, Wal-Mart selling Twilights DVDs, and products you might want to buy to watch it with, Doritos, Pepsi… after that a Diet Coke ad, staring a campaign with a purpose helping foundations, Acuvue and more… every single ad, not only has a product destined to generation Y, but something else related to them; their need to help their society, their lack of money or search for a great look.

Television

On TV is not as easy to catch our attention. The commercials have to be fast paced, but still clear, it had to be colorful and fun. Most commercials that I remember include every one of these characteristics. The Pepsi commercials were a big thing, they had a lot of movement, songs they were produced like big hollywood movies so of course we couldn miss the huge stars and they aimed both for the girls:



And the boys:



Coca Cola decided to take a different path, they still went with colorful and fun, but I believe they were smarted and reached at the same time to various different generation:



In Brazil there is a teen soap opera and I have never seen so “in-your-face” commercials right in the middle of the story line. The main character suddenly stops for a second in her house to tell her friend how this new conditioner she is using is amazing. They do the same thing on shows like Big Brother and other reality shows.





Peers

One thing the author mentions is how much we value the opinion of our friends. It is very much true that we usually listen to what our friends have to say about a product before we buy it. That is what some television ads go for. They put on the screen beautiful people having a lot of fun with a group of friends and of course showing the product. There is really nothing a company can do to make people talk to one another, except following the first steps and getting at least one customer interested.

Other Medias:

I am a big fan of musicals, and I went to see Legally Blonde the Musical at The Fox theater, the Musical was specifically created to the gen y. First of it was created and sponsored by MTV, it first showing on MTV was hosted by the girls from “The Hills”. The show has a lot of different products in it. Elle Woods the character mentions Vogue and Cosmo in dialogues. When she is trying to convince the people in Harvard to admit het she sings, “… Harvard I`m the girl for you and to prove its true we all flew here on jet blue.” And everyone says “Thank you” to this one actor dressed as a jet blue pilot, then he answers “Thank you” back and leaves the stage. In one line Emmet her love interest ask her what red bull is and she says “It gives me ENERGY” and later on the show he says “I don’t know how many I`ve had but I LOVEEE it.” Among all that they still mention Calvin Klein, Chanel, Project Runway and even the Lakers and even more. It is amazing how people in marketing really go out there to get their products across in any way they can possibly find.



I could write about this for pages, but it is very late, I`m glad we can continue this talk in class. Have an amazing weekend.