Map the spectrum of the Millennial generation in society for university and job recruiters, managers, corporate trainers, marketers, content creators, spiritual advisors and parents.
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they will more likely be added to the Young Adults’ 24/7 communication.
In my opinion, the easiest way to do this is with music. Music must be updated
as styles change.
Using living spokespersons as your brand personality is risky. The living
spokesperson may do something that goes against your company’s policies
which make your institution look less reputable. They could do something that
goes against the organization’s culture or established image. Also,
spokespersons cannot live forever like a company can. Lastly, the preferences of
the Young Adult market changes slowly in some respects and quickly in others.
Will your living spokesperson be able to keep up?
Will your spokesperson be accepted after the change of opinion? Will
your living spokesperson be accepted in the same context as they change over
time? Consider all of these things when building a brand personality. Be willing
to change the personality when need be. Even famous brand logos and images
of inanimate objects or fictional characters change overtime according to tastes.
Wayfair, Amazon Prime, and Apple products are examples of brands using
music to assign a personality to a brand or organization. Their advertisements
feature music, color schemes and images that convey the message more
effectively than text or voice overs. Ask yourself, ‘What personality am I
envisioning for this communication infiltration project? What
24/7
Communi
cation
Pattern
3. COMMUNICATE WITH PERSONALITY
Lastly, Young Adults pick and choose which personalities they engage
with during their 24/7 communication. Liberal, conservative, edgy, sweet, mean,
insulting, political, adventurous, casual, witty, silly, informative, slacker, high
achieving, dramatic, inspirational, sarcastic, encouraging, etc.
The Young Adult has some type of foundation to their personality;
however, this personality has different tastes at different times. One Young
Adult may want to be around a sarcastic personality at one time and then
around an inspirational personality at another time. It is best that an institution
adopts a few personalities to appeal to the different groups of Young Adults to
provide what they are looking for most of the time.
Brand ambiguity is a conversational graveyard. An overtly corporate and
personality-less institution does not start conversations among them and their
peers. Give them an agreeable and likable personality to build a frame of
reference around. For illustrative purposes, what is the mood or personality of
these three places that perform the same basic function: A train station, a
subway station, a bus station, an airport. What personalities do Young Adults
assign to these? Which have descended into brand ambiguity?
Establishing a couple of personalities for an organization or a brand is
not difficult. It can be done with visual aids and music. It does not have to be
popular music, just likeable. When a brand or organization creates a personality,
Click to add communication
Brand Ambiguity
4. Click to add strategy
If your brand is ambiguous or too
serious to relate to, re-strategizing
may benefit you.
6. Hugo Boss
1. Who Shops Here?
2. Real or Fictional Example
3. Demographic Information
4. Hobbies and Interests
5. Personality Traits
7. 1. Who Shops Here?
2. Real or Fictional Example
3. Demographic Information
4. Hobbies and Interests
5. Personality Traits
FUBU | FB Legacy
8. 1. Who Shops Here?
2. Real or Fictional Example
3. Demographic Information
4. Hobbies and Interests
5. Personality Traits
Men’s Warehouse
9. 1. Who Shops Here?
2. Real or Fictional Example
3. Demographic Information
4. Hobbies and Interests
5. Personality Traits
Brooks Brothers
10. 1. Who subscribes to this magazine?
2. Real or Fictional Example
3. Demographic Information
4. Hobbies and Interests
5. Personality Traits
GQ Magazine
11. Click to add personality
The above prompts may be altered and used among multigenerational
focus groups to determine which brands are slipping into brand ambiguity and
conversational silence.
What kind of conversation do you think that you would have with each of
them? What would you talk about with each celebrity or fictional character in a
casual lunch setting? Are all the personalities that you perceive these people and
brands to have one in which you would call your friend? If you know of someone
else doing this exercise, compare notes.
Also, if you had trouble thinking of a person to go with any of the brands,
your knowledge of that brand’s target market may be very far outside of your
current experiences and knowledge. This brand may be slipping into brand
ambiguity. You may be completely out of touch with that brand’s target market.
Reaching that market of Young Adults will be more difficult for you and your
team. You may not even see them as a valuable or worthwhile market for your
organization to pursue.
This is not a bad thing. There are some markets that are not worth
communicating with because they do not see you as a friend, peer, helper, or
something to aspire to. However, if the benefits outweigh the costs,
organizational leaders can strategize to change the perception that a group of
consumers have of them. However, this often involves bringing in someone who
is outside of the organization. Someone outside of the organization has an
What would you
talk about with
each brand
character?
In a nutshell Millennial Marketing is a book that I wrote out of frustration. I was so disappointed in watching the ways in which brands tried to sell to young adults. Whether those brands were selling boxed macaroni and cheese, the grocery store shopping experience, or television programs and feature films.
I was confident that the leaders of these organizations could discover a better way to communicate with young adults who are often referred to as Millennials.
I knew that I knew a better way and I knew that I could teach it to them.
When a brand or organization creates a personality, they increase their chances of being added to the young adult’s 24/7 communication pattern.
What is the 24/7 communication pattern?
It is not that the young adult communicates all day - every day. It describes the availability of the platforms and venues of communication in the young adult’s universe. The platform and the patterns are open all day every day.
For Example:
1. Television (It is on all of the time. In the past, television programming would stop airing during a certain time at night. This is not true in the young adult’s universe.)
2. The internet (It is always on and new unseen material is constantly posted in different time zones and could be posted by anyone.)
3. Shopping and restaurants (Consumer services such as brick and mortar shopping, online shopping and many restaurants are always open no matter the season, weather or time.)
The young adult’s universe creates, retains, welcomes and expects a 24/7 communication pattern.
Your brand has an opportunity to be in that pattern. But…
1. Do you know how to stand out?
2. Do you know where to fit in?
3. Do you know what to say?
4. Do you know who to talk to?
The most important question is the last one; “Do you know who to talk to?” It determines the answers for all of the other questions. Discovering your target audience is imperative. Developing a target audience is difficult yet possible. Keep in mind that your targets will overlap other target markets and consumer groups. That is why a brand personality is important and worth time, money and effort to build.
Young adults pick and choose which personalities they engage with during their 24/7 communication pattern. These personalities can be…
Liberal, conservative, edgy, sweet, mean, insulting, political, adventurous, casual, witty, silly, informative, slacker, high achieving, dramatic, inspirational, sarcastic, encouraging, etcetera.
The young adult has some type of foundation to their personality; however, this personality has different tastes at different times.
One well adjusted young adult may want to be around a sarcastic personality at one time and then around an inspirational personality at another time.
It is best that an organization adopts a few personalities to appeal to the different groups of young adults. This is done so that the organization has a more established platform in which they can provide young adults with what they are looking for. In other words, creating a brand personality will enable an organization to more effectively display the organization’s offerings.
What is Brand Ambiguity? (It is the phase of a brand in which the public perceives it to be open to plural interpretations with no defined interpretation. Also, when a brand’s purpose or perceived value is undetermined and inexact. In other words, brand ambiguity is when your target market does not have a shared opinion or perception of your brand.)
Brand ambiguity is a conversational graveyard.
A corporate institution that lacks a personality does not start conversations among young adults.
My recommendation is to give your young adult target market an agreeable and likable personality so that they may build a frame of reference around you. Give them a character to hang their opinion on.
For illustrative purposes, what is the mood or personality of these four places that perform the same basic function? In other words, what are the things that come to mind when I mention these places:
A Train Station
A Subway Station
A Bus Station
An Airport
----
(Pull from the audience)
What personalities do you or young adults assign to these modes of public transportation? Which means of travel would you prefer? For which reasons?
Which mode of transportation did not make you think of anything in particular or anything specific?
Which mode of transportation generated a negative or unattractive image?
I have determined that there are signs when something is becoming ambiguous. The biggest sign is when a group of people are not able to connect a brand, service, or product to anything specific right away. (A group of people is never truly random; a group can always be categorized through demographic traits and information.)
In this situation, I recommend that an organization establish a couple of personalities for a brand. This is not a difficult thing to do; however, it can be done the wrong way very easily. Visual aids and music help to evoke a mood regarding a brand. Keep in mind that you do not need expensive and popular music- just likable music.
When it comes to expressing your personality in that 24/7 communication pattern, bring in someone from the outside so that they may help you realize how young adults interpret your messages and when young adults interpret your messages.
The when in regards to young adults interpreting messages must be in respect to everything in their environment:
Politics (Popular or unpopular political candidates, legislative reform, local government issues)
Phases in their life (Tween, teen, high school, college, post college, young parenthood)
Time of day (Morning, noon, night, breakfast, lunch, dinner)
World conflicts (Middle Eastern conflicts, Southeast Asian conflicts, world poverty and judicial injustice)
Social movements (Gay rights movement, alternative diet lifestyles, gender identity, racial identity)
Domestic conflicts (Frequency of active shooters, racial tension, economic changes and imbalances, immigration laws)
Domestic/International cultural events (Holidays, days of remembrance for social tragedies, school breaks)
Organizations may have the time and money to strategize, but do they have the willingness to change? More importantly, do they have the thick skin required to not let a failure get under their skin- failures of the past, present and the future?
Someone from the outside must be given the authority to tell it like it is- in a constructive and tactful manner.
Lastly, young adults don’t automatically know the young adult market. Just because they are a thirty-something year-old does not mean that they are able to give you any usable information.
You will illustrate examples of recognizable brand personality in the following prompts. This will help you to see that everyone has a perception regarding brands.
Please take out your
Tablets
Phones
Laptops
A sheet of paper and pen to take notes and participate in the exercise.
Please raise your hand if you don’t have any of these materials….
Would anyone else like to be a volunteer?
Parent Company: Hugo Boss is its own company with 88% of shares in Free Float owned by public investors and 10% owned by the Marzotto Family and 2% of shares owned by the Hugo Boss Corporation.
Slogan: One of their slogans for the HUGO brand which is the women’s apparel line is translated into English to mean “Do not imitate but innovate!”
Demographic Information are characteristics such as:
Age
Income
Occupation
Marital Status
Nationality
Race
Gender
Education Level
Founder: Daymond John.
Slogan: For Us By Us.
Parent Company: Tailored Brands, Inc.
Motto: “You're going to like the way you look. I guarantee it.”
Parent: Privately owned company owned by the Italian billionaire Claudio Del Vecchio.
Facts: Started in 1818 and it is the oldest men’s clothier in the United States.
Slogan: The original slogan was “Generations of Style”. Their slogan since 2007 is “Style For A New Generation”.
Parent Company: Advance Publications. When the publication first started in 1931, it was called Apparel Arts. In 1967, it was changed from Gentlemen’s Quarterly to GQ. In 1970, the magazine went from a quarterly publication to a monthly publication.
Slogan: (None found).
If apparel is not your industry, the prompts may be altered to suit your needs and your audience.
This exercise is to determine two things:
Which brands are slipping into brand ambiguity (The phase of a brand in which the public perceives it to be open to plural interpretations with no defined interpretation. Also, when a brand’s purpose or perceived value is undetermined and inexact).
To determine if you are able to relate to the different target markets that these brands reach.
Consider those brands which you struggled to come up with answers for. Reaching out to the target markets of those brands may be more difficult for you.
You may not see those unfamiliar target markets as a valuable or worthwhile market for your organization to pursue.
The good new is…
Not relating to a particular target market is not necessarily a bad thing.
They may not see your brand as a friend, peer, helper, or something to aspire to.
However, if the benefits outweigh the costs, you can strategize to change the perception that a group of consumers have of you.
This often involves bringing in someone who is outside of your organization.
This sort of thing takes time and change.
A fresh pair of eyes increases the chances of reaching your goal. And that goal is…building a specific brand personality.
Who is this book for?
The book is for the leaders of different organizations who are looking to successfully communicate with young adults for the purposes of: Recruiting for employment, training for job positions, selling products and services, supervising young adults in a work environment, enrolling in institutions of higher education, attracting them to your religious institution, and more. Also, the book is for the leaders of the family organization. Parents desire to successfully communicate with their young adult children and relatives.
What do I want people to take away from the book at large?
I want people to see that Millennials or young adults are dynamic and not one sided caricatures.
I want people to see that there are tangible and dynamic ways to understand and reach Millennials.
I want people to see that a multi-prong strategy is necessary to successfully reach this market. Numbers and data are great; however, today’s leaders must not forsake intuitive marketing.
I want people to discover what young adults buy and why and what young adults don’t buy and why
All of these things and more are discussed in the book, Millennial Marketing.
For more research and insights regarding attracting young adults to your Christian congregation as members and ministry workers, A Millennial in Church is a perfect reference. It gives specific tools and tactics such as informational surveys, guidelines for mentors, realistic dialogue guides, example speeches and so much more. The tools in this book were designed to engage young adults and teens.
When you visit Del-Guard.com, you will see my discounted PDF books available for download under the ‘shop’ section.
I am working on a third installment in the ‘Engaging the Millennial Tribe’ book series called ‘Millennials in Society’. It will feature an award winning juvenile diversion program as well as incites from influential adults working to improve society.
