Generational Theories: The Role of Age

When I took the ACT in high school, I anxiously awaited my test results along with the rest of the nation's juniors. When I finally got my scores, I knew I could do better, but I was happy with it--I had scored in the 99th percentile nation-wide. Immediately after the scores came in, my friends and I all compared scores, and each of us scored 98th or higher. We all congratulated each other and complained about how Spencer could have gotten a 33 when he was so lacking in common sense. But after a while, we started wondering how in the world we could all be a part of this "upper eschelon"--who would be in the 50th percentile? 25th? 5th? It came as a shock to many of us to realize that our reality was not the reality of many of our peers in other states, in other communities, in other schools. Ultimately, we only knew the people we knew, never being aware of the rest of what was out there.

In my time as a young planner, I've been approached a number of times for help on speaking and selling to my age demographic. My peers and I are considered experts on our demographic, and while I see the truth to the statements, its like my friends and I celebrating our ACT scores--we only know the people we know, and that can be a very limiting sample. I STILL don't know anything about Friendster, because thats not where my friends are--we're on Facebook. But Friendster still has 90 million registered users, none of which I'm connecting with. Much like my older counterparts, I have to study my own generation. And all of it can get a bit overwhelming...

Enter generational theories. They boil down a nation's worth of teenagers or baby boomers or gen x'ers into easy to digest, easy to support profiles. At the speed of business, the safety of an understood title like "millennials" can be a huge relief, not to mention a money and time saver. 

But are we getting enough out of these titles? How much trust can we put into these profiles? Are they working? Is there a better way to learn?

I say we need more than these profiles to guide our communication. Of course they can help start us down the right path for our own research, but it seems generational theories are increasingly taking the place of primary research, and in my opinion, compromising our results. 

In trying to differentiate your brand, in trying to create innovative communication, I urge you to keep this in mind:

"A city book can only direct you to known places." - Cretien Van Campen in "The Hidden Sense: Synesthesia in Art and Science"

Think on it. More discussion to come.

Comcast lives out its digital media relationships

After my slight tirade Tuesday night and a whole 'lotta back and forth on Twitter with ComcastCares, I popped into bed crossing my fingers that something would come from all of it. The next morning I got a call from Rebecca at Customer Service who I just called back today. She was extremely forthcoming and kind, empathized with my frustration, and gave me 50% off my bill for the month when I asked. Heck of a lot better than the woman who reluctantly offered me a pay-per-view coupon. Shortly after she called yesterday I also got a call from George, who will be coming out on Saturday to get things fixed up. Pleased by the follow-through.

So the question remains. Are they making changes in their traditional communication lines or did I only get a call from the team dedicated to social/digital media? I would love to see Comcast take this online so as to avoid sitting on hold completely, and while I did try to do a live chat, it did not prove as easily as I had hoped it would be. I gotta say though, I won't be calling Comcast if I can help it. I'll be tweeting.

A quick note on treating your consumers with respect

Though this ties into a larger topic I'd like to discuss another time about meaningful brand communication, I noticed a strange instance of a brand missing the mark with their consumers.

Today I called Comcast for the 5th time in 2 weeks because my On Demand wasn't working. Again. Anyway, that's neither here nor there. But I immediately explained my frustration at having gone through this so many times and that "On Demand" doesn't really count if it's "On Demand in an hour after you call us and we send signals and you unplug your box and lose all the channel information." Ok, end rant. I am just surprised and disappointed that there's validity to everyone hating Comcast. 

Anyhow, the calls always included a fair bit of hold time, and today after I got a rep, I ended up on hold for another 20 minutes. Not a big deal because all I had to do tonight was clean, but as soon as they put me on hold, I got a message saying something to the effect of "Want to pay less for your home phone line? (Insert here a hard sell for Comcast Digital Voice) Ask your customer representative today!" Ok, I understand using a phone call as an opportunity to sell, seeing as people use that same line to set up new accounts, change accounts, etc. But for those of us who were calling because the service is consistently failing, the hard sell is sure to bring a grimace. Because it came after my specific choices of equipment or service not working for my cable account, I expected them to be a bit more humble and not use the fact that I'm frustrated on hold as an opportunity to get me to invest more in Comcast.

On the flip side, I reached out to ComcastCares on Twitter and got an immediate response, and he realized I needed a technician, not to just unplug and replug my box. He then went on to set up an appointment for me. 

That's how you do it, folks. Not hard-selling me when I'm stuck wasting my minutes on hold with you. 

EDIT: I got a call this morning from Comcast saying that they had seen my blog and that they'd like me to give them a call. Why is it that Comcast is doing GREAT on the digital media front but not in their traditional infrastructure??

The Evolution of Online Shopping

One of the most fascinating things about the internet for me has been the changes that have occurred in the way we shop online. It used to be that we used the internet to research products before we bought them, and only the most brave actually used it to purchase items. As time went on, e-commerce became more sophisticated and we as consumers grew in our online shopping repertoire.

According to the Pew Internet and American Life Survey released in February 2008, 93% of Americans have at one point participated in e-commerce. Now 20% of us use the internet every day to research a product we're interested in buying. With the way the e-marketplace has grown, I'm almost surprised this number isn't higher, as we have so many ways to participate:

Ebay showed us a way to both buy and sell items in the familiar format of auctions.
PayPal calmed our fears about the safety of online shopping.
Amazon suggests content based on our preferences and the buying behaviors of others who have purchased similar items.
Pandora and the iTunes Genius Bar suggests new music (that we buy online or IRL)
Etsy created a mom-and-pop marketplace for independent artists
PriceGrabber.com and other sites allowed us to comparison shop just like we would in real life, but saving us the time, travel, and energy.

I think it is interesting to note that many of these changes reflect the way we shop in real life. We understood the concept of auctions and were able to integrate that knowledge into our online purchasing behaviors. We follow WOM to find the best products in the categories we're interested in. We trust the suggestions of our friends, family, colleagues, and other peers who share our same interests. More and more, we're seeing online shopping reflecting exactly the way we shop in real life.

An interesting iteration of this trend is the Epsonality website, created by Butler Shine Stern and Partners. It takes the real life experience of shopping in a store with the help of a sales clerk and translates it to an online experience. When you first come to the site, you are greeted by a charming voice who instructs you to select your various printing needs (price, job type, necessary extra features, etc). Once you've done that, it calculates which printer is best for your needs. It then introduces you to your printer and points out some of its special features (each of which are illustrated in a light-hearted, charming way). When you "Meet your Epsonality" it spews back to you what it's got and why it fits your needs. At this point you can either find a retailer or buy it on the spot. You can then download widgets to "inspire your epsonality."

While I love that it walks you through the process and helps with the ever-daunting task of shopping for tech hardware, I know myself and many others don't necessarily do their online shopping at home. We're taking the internet everywhere we go, and suddenly having a voice pop out of your work computer, iPhone, or laptop at the coffee shop isn't necessarily preferable. It'd be an easy fix to just do a title page that tells you to plug your headphones in or let you know sound is coming. A recent ISACA survey called "Shopping on the Job: Online Holiday Shopping and Workplace Internet Safety" noted that 63% of Americans intended to shop online at work this holiday season, while only 55% of companies allowed such behaviors (from an IT standpoint--productivity is obviously a whole 'nother issue). And truthfully, I  imagine that the number of folks using their time at work to do a bit of research is significantly higher than those who intended to make those purchases as found by the survey.

So while I love that the Epsonality website took online shopping to the next level of real-life reflection, it may have been a bit off-mark when it comes to where we're doing our shopping and what that means for the desired user experience.

Location as Identity: Further discussions by the top dogs

Just watched this video from PFSK.com on Good Ideas in 2009. The very first idea discussed is right on with part of what I was talking about a few posts back.

"We're fascinated with how physical location is being blurred with virtual identity and virtual information." The ideas that follow are super cool, and though they have less to do with identity in "real life" than some of my examples, they discuss a lot about tying your online and offline lives and how GPS and location help support that marriage. The video is about 34 minutes but worth the time.

Also a great discussion of some really really cool applications that use GPS to provide you with new, better, and more relevant information. All exciting discussions because technology is starting to catch up with some of our ideas and now we can really push them forward. I wonder who's taking the credit for these innovations--the people who came up with ideas first, or the companies who are helping to realize them?

Love that they mention the importance of a meaningful brand communication, not just sending mobile coupons 24/7. THIS APPLIES TO ALL NEW MEDIA! More on that later.

Toshiba puts its hat in the ring

Just found this ad by Toshiba-- I think it's a pretty good example of something I've talked about here before: in the tech industry, often times the best way to get consumers to consider you is by drawing them in emotionally and then supporting them with the rational and technical information instead of vice versa. For example, the Sony Bravia campaign "Color like no other." I watched "Balls" and "Paint" and thought "Yup, got it."  This commercial has a similar strategy:

Not only is it a cool ad visually, but it reinforces the message that things are changing, technology is advancing, so don't you want to be with the company thats making those innovations happen? Truthfully, I've never thought about Toshiba this way, but they've given me cause to think about it.

I will say that it's not quite as strong strategically as it could be...it talks about sharp, clear picture and the "timesculpture" doesn't necessarily demonstrate this in the way that the Sony commercials demonstrate color, but it's still worth taking a gander at. And who's to say every had has to be rationally strategic? Sometimes finding a way to get eyes on the screen is strategy enough if the product sells itself. But that's a whole 'nother topic for another day...

A New Communications Model- Consumers are Changing the Conversation

In September I attended the Deepspace presentation on Modern Brand Building, where I heard from Paul Isakson, Adrian Ho, and Dion Hughes. During the presentations they each presented a number of different metaphors for brands and brand communications. But during the presentation a different idea came to me--a revised communication model, to reflect the way consumers communicate in this media environment.

I realized that oftentimes, we assume that the consumer is going to give us--the senders--feedback, when instead they're much more likely to share their thoughts with others, both good and bad. 

(Red lines are the traditional way, blue lines replace the bottom red line--these blue lines of communications result in WOM, blogging, Twitter posts, Facebook fan pages, etc)

Windo recently made mention here of these conversations, calling them "me-casting." He noted that these communicators may be influencers if brands come check out what these consumers are saying, but that's just the thing. I think that brands need to make an effort to seek out these opinions, and not just by giving them a place to share them. They're striking up these conversations with their friends, their peers, their co-workers and family. Comcast actually figured this one out and opened their ComcastCares Twitter account. I've personally benefitted from it and think it's pretty kickass.

Like I've said, I typically don't like brand metaphors and limiting models like these, but I think this added friction point needs to be added to the conversation around communication.