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TV Ads are a dying breed…or are they?

After mocking David Hogg, a 17-year-old survivor of the recent high school shooting in Florida, on Twitter over his college rejections, popular Fox News TV host Laura Ingraham faced major backlash online, including from Hogg himself. After Hogg urged users to boycott brands that advertised on Ingraham’s show, these companies started to cut ties with the show, including Nestle, Johnson & Johnson, TripAdvisor, Nutrish, Expedia and Hulu. This led Ingraham to apologize on Twitter last week, although this apology was not accepted by Hogg.  Ingraham also announced that she will be taking a pre-planned vacation and will not be on air for a week. This move mirrors Bill O’Reilly’s when his sexual misconduct came to light. The backlash and the subsequent abandonment by the advertisers were swift.

Regardless of where you stand on the gun control issue, the fact is that a 17-year-old, along with his classmates, has been able to affect change–both socially and economically–by using social media. What’s notable is that despite the news coverage this has received, spendings on TV ads are actually declining and projected to continue declining as streaming services increase in popularity and fewer viewers turn to traditional TV programming.

According to eMarketer, TV ad spending will continue to decline in 2018 and 2019, projecting a loss of over $1 billion in the next two years to roughly $70 billion (Jarvey, 2018). The decline of TV ad mirrors the decline of ratings across TV shows (2018). Meanwhile, ad spending on Google and Facebook is projected to increase 19 percent to $107 billion. While TV ads’ importance to companies may not be as big as their online advertisements, the swift actions by these companies when Internet urged them to cut ties with Ingraham shows that TV ads are not going away without still making an impact on the society. Perhaps we will see more spending on YouTube and other video platforms, impacting advertisers on social media. The way companies use its advertising budgets is expected to transition toward digital advertisements as more consumers use digital platforms.

How do you think TV ads will be used to affect change in the next five years? Do you think younger generations will continue to urge advertisers to pull ads from certain shows on TV, or do you think more users will urge advertisers to stop streaming ads on certain YouTube channels or social media platforms?

References

Jarvey, Natalie. (2018, March 28). Study: TV Ad spending declined by $1 billion in 2017. The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved from https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/tv-ad-spending-declined-by-1-billion-2017-1098085

Steinberg, Brian. (2018, March 30). Laura Ingraham says she’ll take planned vacation amidst controversy. Variety. Retrieved from http://variety.com/2018/tv/news/laura-ingraham-vacation-tv-advertising-1202740828/

Trending in the news this week was the tweet Fox newscaster Laura Ingraham tweet about Parkland survivor/teen activist David Hogg in response to Hogg’s tweet about being rejected by four University of California colleges. Ingraham tweeted the following:

In response to Ingraham’s tweet, or as Hogg saw it—criticism, Hogg then tweeted the following:

Now although Hogg did not spell it out in his tweet, he essentially launched a boycott campaign aimed at Ingraham’s advertisers. It’s reported that more than a dozen companies have pulled their ads from Ingraham’s show including 11 of the companies Hogg mentioned in his tweet.

This made me ask the question:

Should activists really have a say in advertising revenue….and should various advertising mediums allow it?

Hogg’s ensured to tag the companies as well in his tweet to get their attention while giving access to his 600k+ to tweet at them directly.  Wayfair immediately tweeted their decision to pull their ads from the show.  Now is all this really warranted?

While attending a live session for 541 earlier this week, Brandon Rochon made a statement that intrigued me. He said, “you have seven seconds to grab someone’s attention.”

While Brandon recited this profound statement, all I could think about was a previous boss who openly admitted he had a short attention span, and how my youngest son struggles to stay focused.

This started my journey to understand how professionals in marketing will have to alter the way they connect to short-attention span consumers.

An article in Marketing News, describes how behavioral economics play into the quick-thinking, short-attention consumers through a theory Richard Thaler calls the “Nudge” (Conick, 2018).

One of the best examples to help you related to this theory is when you are grocery shopping. How many times have items ended up in your shopping cart, which you had not planned to buy or even knew much about, they just looked appealing. Around half of the items in your cart are there because of behavioral economics (Conick, 2018).

Another example, which I found extremely humorous living in a house with three boys, was a study conducted in the Amsterdam Schiphol Airport. Thaler and a legal scholar Cass Sunstein wanted to see if they could alter people’s behavior without interfering with their economic incentives. They placed a decal of a small fly in a urinal at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport. The fly decal improved the “aim” of the men who visited the urinal – so much that the airport reported an 80% in men’s restroom spillage after the fly decal was installed in all the urinals (Conick, 2018).

As marketers you need to understand and know the following behavioral economic terms to create successful marketing tactics:

Nudge: “Any aspect of the choice architecture that alters people’s behavior in a predictable way without forbidding any options or significantly changing their economic incentives,” according to Thaler and Sunstein in the book, Nudge.

Choice Architecture: The space – physical, social, psychological – that influence choices people make.

Anchoring: A cognitive bias. People typically rely too heavily on the first piece of information they’re given when making a decision (they are anchored to it).

System 1: The faster, intuitive way of thinking and making choices. An example of this is 2+2 = 4 or the grass is green.

System 2: The slower, rational way of thinking and making choices. An example of this is 142×431=61,202 or hypoestes phyllostachya is pink and green. If you’re like me you had to know what this plant looked like.

Prospect Theory: A theory that describes how people choose between risks where outcome probabilities are unknown.

Conceptual Priming: Using words, images and their meanings to influence a person’s mood or performance on a task.

Framing: How a choice is presented, which may affect how a choice is made.

Heuristic: A cognitive shortcut to simplify a decision. In other words, substituting a difficult question with an easier one, meaning heuristics often lead to cognitive biases.

If this topic is of interest to you, here is a link to the 2008 book Nudge.

References

Conick, H (2018, January). Read this story to learn how behavioral economics can improve marketing. Marketing News, 52(1),  32-41.

We’ve all now probably went back and forth within our perspective teams asking ourselves the same question, “How do we sell our product to millennials?” This question may have kept some of us up at night, perhaps it was the catalyst for a shouting match, it may have even caused you to call, text, send a telegram (generational humor), to the nearest millennial you could find to get their take on the subject. Only to find out that even millennials themselves don’t have a clear-cut answer on what it takes to get them to purchase certain products over others. Each instance draws us closer and closer to pulling our hair out. Honestly, as a millennial myself, I find the topic frustrating.

The numbers are there. According to ComScore, millennials are the largest generational cohort in the United States and spend over $170 billion annually. We also know that millennials are nestled within an age range that puts them somewhere near college. Whether they are currently enrolled or graduated within the past 10 years or so (provided they attended college), millennials are dealing with the highest cost of college attendance proportionately in our nation’s history with the average student loan debt hovering around $30,000. This leads millennials to be a particularly financially cautious generation. So in my research, I think I’ve pinpointed three central concepts to think about as we all face the issue of marketing to millennials.

Let’s Have A Conversation

Millennials are a hands-on generation from the standpoint that they want to feel as though they are a part of the conversation that builds a brand and their products. Utilizing your company’s Twitter feed to respond to and drive conversation surrounding your brand provides an authentic and inclusive environment to rally this generation to become your brand’s champion. Listening is not the final step. The next step is to answer to these demands by providing the product that they’ve all been clamoring for.

Don’t Do Too Much

As brilliantly communicated in a recent post by Bobby Borg, many millennials have built a resistance to condescending motives by parents, teachers, marketers and the like and have become able to sniff it out from a mile away. Marketing efforts must be sincere and must connect synchronously to the brand’s values. Millennials align themselves with brands that champion social causes they care about. Gun control, race equality, gender equality, environmental consciousness and many other hot-button issues are at the center of millennials values and they want to shop with companies that stand with them. However, talking the talk without walking the walk just to get millennial buy-in can have adverse effects. Also, saying that you are cutting-edge is not enough to get this audience on board. Millennials are used to fast technological innovations, Affirm.com states that what creates more brand loyalty are items that provide incremental value. Lasty, this probably goes without saying but it would help a lot to avoid the use of the word “millennial” in ANY marketing effort that your brand comes up with.

Reach Millennials Where They Are At

Make it easy on your brand. Bring the shopping experience to where ever the millennial finds themselves. Entrepreneur.com states that millennials check their phones 43 times per day. As a brand, if you can just find your way onto a millennials phone one time per day, you are doing a hell of a job to increase engagement. Millennials are also 71% more likely to listen to music via music streaming services such as Spotify or Pandora. Five out of six millennials connect themselves to brands via social media. But social media isn’t the only bring your brand to the millennial. Understanding the seemingly infinite amount of shopping choices millennials have can help as well. Some like to go in stores, and then go buy things that they saw online. Some receive gifts that were ordered online but would like to take the item into a store to return it. Being conscientious of the many ways that this age of shoppers operates puts your brand at an advantage as you now can strategically place items in your store by returns desks and the like to increase sales.

All in all, there is no one sure fire way to sell to millennials. But by making sure to talk with them and not to them will certainly gain you favor in your quest. Making sure to not do too much and allow your brand’s story to inform the way that your brand champions social issues that millennials care about provides a level of authenticity that this generation remembers when they are sorting through their purchasing options. And lastly, making it easy on your brand, as well as the millennials to find your brand will only aide in increasing sales from this generation.

If you are in the business of selling to consumers, marketing and artificial intelligence (AI) go hand-in-hand with data science and design. Once again creatives gathered for innovative conversations happening at this year’s South by Southwest 2018 (SXSW) conference in Austin, TX to discuss the latest use of data, design and artificial intelligence for designing the consumer experience.

Prominent consulting firm McKinsey & Company was one of the many sponsors and global experts to facilitate the engaging conversations around AI’s growing value in customer personalization and the challenges of designing fair and inclusive algorithms that can lead to biases against different races, ethnicities, and genders. Two examples mentioned included how an application for a loan in the fintech industry can be evaluated differently based on the algorithm’s designer or a job applicant’s resume can be ignored for gender or age and never end up in the interview pool. AI’s ability to gather large sets of data at the macro level may provide more efficiency for a company by targeting consumer data, but at what cost to privacy? There were data scientist across the panels and in the audience sharing the debate on what AI can and can’t do, including its inability to being able to empathize like humans, but they are working on it.

For the retail industry space, AI has become the way to put the customer experience first and foremost for driving competitive advantage and brand loyalty as the retail industry suffers attrition to e-commerce and less foot traffic in brick-and-mortar stores. A new 2018 research study sponsored by Salesforce and written by a team of consultants from Deloitte Digital, “Consumer Experience in the Retail Experience: How Leading Brands Build A Bedrock With Data,” makes a strong case that with big investments in AI and data design, retail brands are actually moving into a time of “retail renaissance” by taking deeper dives in capturing consumer data and finding new ways to engage shoppers through machine learning, augmented reality and virtual reality.

AI has been around for a while but how it has been used has not been as efficient as it could be for engaging consumers. One challenge has been that leading brands often use “an average of 39 systems to manage consumer engagement” and have difficulty prioritizing the data and accessing it. Also, the supply chain of talented data scientists to fill the demand is lacking, yet even if there were enough, brands are still playing catch-up on investing in the infrastructure to utilize their talents. Roles and responsibilities definitions, as well as governance and consumer data security, are issues that are of bigger concern before investment in hiring data scientists.

AI allows for massive disruptions in the retail industry through personalization tactics that include pricing, promotions, and search that will eventually include visual search and voice recognition.

The key to success for driving retail resurgence is to bring on a unified engagement strategy over the entire consumer lifecycle that integrates the actionable decision-making among cross-functional teams in consumer marketing, commerce and data analytics. Unification in strategy for brand departments and teams means they must work as an orchestra to provide the right engagement for their consumers through the use of AI, data and design while monitoring and preserving consumer data privacy.

References

Deloitte Digital. (n.a.). (2018). Consumer experience in the retail renaissance: How leading brands build a bedrock with data. Retrieved from https://c1.sfdcstatic.com/content/dam/web/en_us/www/documents/e-books/learn/consumer-experience-in-the-retail-renaissance.pdf

Napolitano, J. (2018, March 16). The big conversations on AI and design at SXSW 2018. McKinsey & Company. Retrieved from https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/digital-mckinsey/our-insights/digital-blog/the-big-conversations-on-ai-and-design-at-sxsw-2018

Young, H. (2018, March 19). How to win shoppers in the retail renaissance: New data from 550 brand leaders. Salesforce. Retrieved from https://www.salesforce.com/blog/2018/03/retail-renaissance-new-data.html

For the last two weeks we have been faced with having to choose a big idea upon which to write a final paper and develop a presentation that moves our guest speaker and panel of peers. Many teams have already begun this process and are fast at work, while others are yet to embark on this difficult process. So how does one go about choosing one creative idea over the other? Samuel Bacharach and the folks at Inc. offer 7 steps that might offer some additional help. Be sure to offer your own pointers in the comments below. 

1. Is The Idea Based on Research? Is the idea based on research such as the interview, observational, and sentiment analysis research that was conducted by your USC team at the beginning of the quarter? Is the idea truly derived from all of your insights? To be sure, don’t confuse this to mean not taking risks and pushing the limits, but rather to choose ideas that are not merely based on pure assumptions. Utilize your research and more research if possible!

2. Does the Idea Have Staying Power? Does the idea have the potential for a sequel or series of ads that can run over the next few years? In other words, do you see a follow-up to the idea or is it just a one hit wonder that is only capitalizing on a recent trend or fad? Often the biggest ideas are those that last the longest. For inspiration, think of some of the great “Big Ideas” discussed in our blogs this week that have lasted for decades: Dos Equis: “The Most Interesting Man campaign,” and Milk: “Got Milk,” are two campaigns to name just a few.

3. Does The Idea Fill a Practical Need? Does the idea help to fill a need and to solve a problem in the marketplace? After all, while we have all been taught that an idea must be entertaining, it must also fulfill some functional benefit that makes the target audience believe they need to go buy it.

4. Is the Idea Sticky? Does the idea stick into your head, heart, and soul after hearing it? According to Bacharach, no matter whether an idea is humorous, heart-felt, functional, or it challenges the audience’s current way of thinking about a brand or company, a truly “sticky idea” is one that makes an emotional connection with both the creator and with the target audience. It makes people stop and think about the concept and frankly to give a serious damn. A sticky idea makes people want to talk about it and it makes people want to share it.

5. Can The Idea Be Integrated?  How well does the idea integrate into the complete brand of the organization? Is it aligned with the overall company strategy or positioning statement? Can the idea be executed on a number of different platforms utilizing a number of different marketing mix strategies while still remaining effective equally across the board?

6. Is the Idea Financially Realistic? While Bacharach and the folks at Inc. didn’t set any budget limits to indicate what is and is not practical, nor did our USC instructors, clearly there is a point when we should know whether an idea is impractical. Can the idea really be pulled off within reason, or is the idea so over inflated it will never see the light of day?

7. Do Your Team Members Like It? Finally, a great idea is one that the entire team can stand behind, because it is the entire team that will be pitching it! This begins by the team members all being open-minded, and not immediately shutting out an idea on the first word. All of the members of the team must work together to brainstorm ideas freely, and then to slowly narrow down one idea after the other based on the criteria mentioned above. The process must not be rushed. In fact, it might take several attempts before everyone is equally passionate about choosing one creative idea over the another.

So you heard it from Samuel Bacharach and the folks at Inc with of course a little peppering from me as well. Please remember to leave your own tips for choosing one creative idea over another. I’m sure we all could use the help. Peace out and fight on!

Bobby Borg is the author of five entertainment-based books published by Billboard/Random House and Hal Leonard Creative Arts Group. He also writes regularly for a series of Blogs. He can be reached at www.bobbyborg.com

According to a blog post at SingularityHub , Millennials are those born between 1980 and 2000. They range in age between 15 and 35 give or take a few years.

Millennials have grown up in a period of great technological development, and the world is quite different than it was in previous generations like the Baby Boomer generation, but why is it that Millennials and so many others talk so much about being Millennial? I personally do not remember my parents ever (not even once) referring to themselves as a “Baby Boomer” and I do not remember brands directly referring on a daily basis to those they market to as “Baby Boomers.” But, I’d be a Millionaire if I had a dollar for every time a Millennial referred to himself or herself as a Millennial, for every time the phrase, “like, um, our generation” was used in a sentence, or for every time I browsed the Internet for news and saw something on the “Millennial generation.” I understand that not everyone’s experiences are similar to mine, and not every Millennial fits the this mold, but my perspective is that of an instructor of over 350 students per semester. So what’s the deal?

First, Why Do Companies and Brands Talk So Much About Millennials?

Boomers Hiring Employees Need To Understand New Employees: According to SingularityHub , young talent (i.e., Millennials) have different wants and needs when it comes to work. For instance, Millennials care more about training and development, cash bonus incentives, and flexible work hours. On that latter note, “flexible workplace practices” are more possible than ever given new technologies, and Millennials like to be mobile and work in remote locations at their will. If employers want to attract new and emerging talent, they have to be aware and understand what makes Millennials tick.

Brands Marketing Products and Services Need To Understand Markets: The folks at SingularityHub also remind us that given the new digital world we live in, Millennials have additional wants and needs that are quite different than the past. For instance, Millennials expect it “now” and “on demand.” Want a ride, call Uber. Want a book, download it from AMAZON or get it later today with AMAZON Prime. Furthermore, Millennials want to be in control of their marketing messages (they don’t want to be marketed to, they want to be part of the conversation), they want companies to be transparent, and they want brands to stand for something important in the world. This touches the surface. The point: if brands want to connect, they have to understand!

Okay, We’ve Heard All of The Above Before, But This Doesn’t Tell US Why Millennials Talk About Being Millennials?

Millennials Think of Themselves As The “Me” Generation: As previously stated, not all millennials fit the mold, but according to a blog post by Time, Millennials refer to themselves as Millennials because there is nothing more important in the world than Millennials. (I can hear you all getting angry, but don’t kill the messenger, I didn’t say this, Time did, and they have the data). In a study conducted by The National Institutes of Health, 58% more college students were shown to be more narcissistic in 2009 than in 1982. Furthermore, in a study conducted by the National Study of Youth and Religion, Millennials were found to be so guided by their own self greatness that 60% were confident that they would be able to just “feel” their way out of any business or life crisis. Finally, in another study by the National Institutes of Health, 40% of the Millennials polled believe that every two years they should be rewarded with a raise or promotion, regardless of their work and career performance. So given the above information, it is no wonder why Millennials talk about themselves as being Millennials. It’s in their DNA!

Oh, come On, Is This Really Fair? There Has To Be Another Side To This Story: So, Why Do Many Millennials Really Talk About Being Millennial? And do They Really?

Millennials Need to Defend Themselves Against the “Old” People: According to an article by Skift, Millennials do not talk about being Millennials as much as Baby Boomers and Generation Xers do. It’s Baby Boomers and Generation Xers (or as Millennials call them—”old people”) that initiate and perpetuate the conversation about Millennials because Baby Boomers and Generation Xers are tired of being left out of the conversation. The joke is, “the conversation” was started by BBs and Xers  in the first place. And the conversations are so stereotypical—-painting all Millennials to be alike. According to the folks at Skift, many Millennials feel that they do not fit the Millennial description and they get rather angry about the “stereotypical box” they are painted into. Skift claims that the average Millennial might even know less about something like technology than Generation Xers or even Baby Boomers think, and it is this and other silly stereotypes that has Millennials on the defense. In other words, any talk done about Millennials by Millennials is really talk  to counteract all the negativity that is being perpetuated by other generations. It’s their self-defense mechanisms kicking in to set the record straight. Wait, there’s more.

Millennials Do it Because It’s Their Parents’ Fault: According to an article by Muse, Baby Boomer parents are what’s really at the heart of this Millennial crisis. Baby Boomer parents, in their loving way of course, are the ones who want their children to be educated and to have all of the benefits of life. Boomer parents shower their children with “you can do anything you want in the world—even when you come in third place or don’t place at all—trophies for everyone.” Furthermore, according to Muse, much that’s wrong with the world today can also be blamed on Boomer parents—the economy, diminishing social security benefits, and even the state of politics. Millennials have no other choose than to believe that they can save the planet, albeit it might come off as cocky and overly self assured. I know, I know, I can hear what you Boomers and Xers are thinking: Boo hoo, so are you Millennials really gonna blame it on Mommy and Daddy (who BTW were raised by parents who suffered through something called World-War 1 and 2)? Boy or boy! This can really get deep! Nonetheless, I can still see the Millennials point in this overall argument.

Okay, Okay, So Where Do We Go From Here? Where Should The Conversation Go?

The Multi-generation Should Be Talking About The Multi-generation: According to the folks at Skift, the conversation should not be about how great, but self-centered, or entitled Millennials are; not about how much spending power and in charge, but “old” and out of touch Baby Boomers are; and not about how Generation Xers feel left out of the conversation. Rather the conservation needs to shift to the multi-generational world and workplace we live in today, and how we must “all” work productively and harmoniously together to accomplish some really amazing things in this world. We need to learn to speak each other’s languages and respect each other—from all sides of the fence. Says Skift, we need to learn from each other, and be open-minded. Not just Baby Boomers figuring out Millennials, but Millennials figuring out Baby Boomers and Generation Xers as well. It shouldn’t be an US versus THEM type of situation. This doesn’t mean more articles about how to understand what makes Baby Boomers tick to level the playing field. It means more conversation about how we can all work together in a unified world. Says Skift, we are all different, but we can do great things together as the “multi-generation.”

Bobby Borg

Bobby Borg writes regularly about the entertainment business. He has published five books With Hal Leonard and has written over 1,00o articles for magazines like Music Connection, Billboard, Modern Drummer, and many more. His Website is www.bobbyborg.com

https://www.cmo.com.au/slideshow/524795/10-examples-cutting-edge-marketing-tech/

I have been a passive follower of marketing trends and processes mainly due to my nearly 20 years of working within the entertainment industry. However, I now say passive in the past tense because I feel that CMGT 541 has helped me to have a more critical eye than before where I can no longer see the forrest for the trees, where I now instinctively dissect each and every aspect of any new ad I see on a daily basis. With my new skills that I have developed over the last 10 weeks, I have searched and searched for an innovative topic for this post where much of what I read lacked the ability of giving me an “ah ha!” moment until I read an article from Australia of all places.

This article caught my attention partially because one of the CMGT 541 midterm presentations has been mulling over and over in my mind for a few weeks now. The midterm I am referencing provided an analysis of the major challenges facing Nordstrom, and many other retailers like it, who are feeling the harsh realities of losing its sales to an ever growing number of online retailers. This of course comes at a time where we are starting to see the demise of many brick and mortar retailers like, Sears, Macys and now, Toys R Us. An although there are many ideas abound that are trying to solve this growing issue of how to differentiate one’s brick and mortar store in order to engage and trigger actual foot traffic that actually translates into actual purchases in a brick and mortar store, I have seen very little evidence of actual solutions that have been put into practice, well, until now.

This article provides 10 innovative examples of how marketers are not only launching cutting-edge campaigns to garner more consumer engagement, but the real ‘next level’ element is that each of these campaigns are actually designed to engage with consumers within the real world and not in just cyberspace. As a result, I feel that these 10 examples can provide a vital foundation for more progressive ideas like these to potentially bring “point and clickers” back to brick and mortar environments. One example is where Adidas, the global athletic shoe and apparel brand, has created a digital shoe wall within a brick and mortar retail store where consumers can have digital experience while also having a real life shopping experience where they can look at an entire wall of Adidas shoes and interact with each shoe in a virtual setting. They can pick up each shoe and spin it around and even try them on in a virtual space, and in doing so, this solution has created an environment that the internet can’t replicate or offer.

Another example is ‘geo-fencing’ of a brand’s followers, where in the article showcases how a popular band can create specific messages based on the actual geographic location of its fans, where the messages can start a week before the band even arrives to the fan’s town to build up anticipation while triggering the fans to post back and forth with he band on social media. The concept is then elevated when the geo-fencing allows fans to opt-in and receive messages when they get to the concert site itself so that they have access to exclusive content and can continue to interact with the band in real time throughout the entire concert experience.

Of course these are just 2 examples, but I invite all of you to read the article because I found it fascinating to see real ideas put into action where the singular goal is to build and maintain a bridge between the brands and its consumers, that creatively leverages an integrated marketing campaign in order to help brick and mortar brands create a more meaningful way to bring their customers back from the digital ‘click and buy’ digital space back in the physical stores themselves.