Mind Your X's and Y's by Lisa Johnson & Cheri Hanson

Author:Lisa Johnson & Cheri Hanson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2006-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

The Craving: Keep it Underground

As long as there has been human culture, there have been subcultures—centered around politics, lifestyles, leisure activities—that exist outside mainstream society. These independent or countercultural forces have traditionally held more sway for youth, but today people of all ages are increasingly affected by subcultures of every form.

The Connected Generation has grown up feeling saturated by advertising and marketing. They are suspicious of ordinary push campaigns and gravitate toward integrated, contextual offerings that emerge from trusted friends and members of their networks. If you’ve read Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point, you understand the “Law of the Few”: A select group of people discover something new—from shoes to bands to politics to neighborhoods—and translate it in a way that it becomes acceptable to a much wider audience. 6 This is the way of the underground.

Sales and advertising have historically relied on an invasive model. Customers put up with incessant ads because it seemed like a fair trade-off for free television and radio programming. Today, technology empowers consumers to skip ads and customize their programming, which flips the traditional model on its head. Thanks to services like TiVo and media such as podcasts, consumers can bypass ads entirely. Advertisers can no longer invade homes through television without consent, and the “go big, go loud” approach is now ineffective because people are put off by it.

Too much advertising can also dampen word-of-mouth buzz. People don’t share new things with their networks if the information is already out there. Why would you spread the word about a new teeth-whitening product, for example, if the television ads play every fifteen minutes on major networks? Unless you had an exceptional personal experience with the product, there would be no reason to say anything. We are quickly moving from a push model to one where highly networked customers learn about products and services from each other and choose to pull in the information that they find interesting or useful.

It’s increasingly critical to create compelling experiences and relevant communication channels that are respectful of, and carefully tailored to, customers’ true needs and values. Even the market is becoming more fragmented, as people travel in social groups based largely on personal interests. Reaching people en masse is becoming difficult to do, so companies need to learn how to communicate with these private subcultures and get invited to take part in the underground communities. Today, the opportunity is to add value to these communities and build authentic, long-term relationships with small groups that take the message out to larger networks. It’s a delicate balance. Many subcultures believe that going mainstream means “selling out,” so organizations need to show careful consideration for their group beliefs and sensibilities.

Sincere, respectful, pull-based marketing will lead consumers to reward their favorite brands for showing true relevance. They not only accept the brand as part of the community, but then share it with a wider circle. The marketing message so closely matches the audience’s needs that they don’t feel intruded upon. And research shows that nonintrusive approaches are the best way to satisfy the Connected Generation.

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