Cultural confluence of sport

July 31, 2012 Leave a comment

Cultural attendees of both generations attend sports eventsResearch continues to reinforce the reality that audiences of all types are shared… not owned.  Millennial and boomer cultural attendees in the U.S show similarity in types of cultural events they attend and more importantly underscores a strong attendance at popular sports events.

There aren’t very many behaviors that these two generations share, let alone at a rate of 50% .  The propensity for cultural attendees of both generations to attend sports events is a clear stand out.   If almost 50% of your audience is going to sporting events – maybe you should (gasp!) explore collaboration with these teams? Even more shocking… but what about sports entities targeting the affluent cultural enthusiast?

People who do things, do things.  It’s a startlingly logical conclusion that is often ignored by an egocentric view of our own product. Exploring the connection of cultural to more popular culture has potential to grow audience and exposure.

Room for discussion

Sports events are a shared interest – so maybe sports advertising tactics can be shared?  What are some sports marketing/advertising tactics that translate well into the arts?

Filed under Marketing, Sports, Ticketed Events Tagged with , , ,

Google and Apple: Poster Brands for Consumer Focus

September 6, 2011 Leave a comment

Google and Apple Focus on Customer Needs“Apple proves that if you organize around the consumer, the rest of it will follow…” said Google’s Eric Schmidt in a recent interview.

Hallelujah!  It’s the perfect reinforcement of marketing’s Holy Grail – the absolute critical need to focus on the consumer.   To hear it from the mouth of Google’s founder and in the context of Apple gives a uniquely  relevant reinforcement of the importance of the consumer for today’s student.

In my teaching and professional experience consumer centricity is by far the most difficult concept to drill into newbie marketers. When students get it, they get it.  But when there is a struggle it invariably goes back to one of the following;

  • Understanding you are not your target market

We experience life through our own filters.  They are not indicative of other people’s experiences and perceptions.  Get out of your own head. Get into the head of your target.

  • Starting the solution – before you understand the target

This is like prescription without diagnosis.  It presents itself commonly with a student excitedly talking about building an app or developing a tactic without even beginning to understand the consumer.

Schmidt goes on to say; “…Google sort of runs in a similar way (to Apple) . . . try to figure out how to solve a consumer problem and then the revenue will show up.”

Thanks to this article, the reinforcement of understanding the consumer will become a little easier… as it speaks a language that is more relevant to an educator’s target market: students!

Filed under Branding, Marketing Tagged with , , ,

Teens Text 3,364 Times per Month

July 8, 2011 Leave a comment

Connecting with target markets means understanding their point of view on the world.  That’s likely to become more and more challenging for the older

Teens also watch more than 7 hours of mobile video monthly

Mobile and Social Media Motivated Teens

marketer as they find themselves struggling with the moving target of teen media consumption.

Nielsen recently published this look at the American teen and their media habits and it provides a media context that is predominantly mobile/social and decreasingly traditional.

  • 3,364 is the average number of texts monthly for this year’s high school graduate.  That’s over 100 texts per day.   If that doesn’t stun you,  then consider that this is twice as many texts as the next closest demographic of 18-24year olds..
  • 7 hours plus of mobile video a month.  That’s almost three hours more than the next closest demographic.

IF they are spending all their time with mobile and social, what media is taking the loss?

  • TV – they watch 40 hours less per month than the average american
  • Talk less on the phone.  Only the 65+  American spends less time talking on the phone than teens

Oh, and they are social too.  78%  visit social media/blogs.

Many a comic portrayal of the teen overly absorbed in their phone are actually accurate.  Not a fad, this is a lifestyle change that points the way to the importance of understanding this next wave of media.

Filed under Mobile, SocialMedia Tagged with , , , ,

BET bets on Niche Targets

June 27, 2011 Leave a comment

Not too long ago ethnic targets were considered akin to a niche market.  My how things have changed!

Conscious Sisters segment for BET

"Conscious Sisters" is a segment of BET female viewers that focus on family and home

Target segmentation overall looks more like niche segmentation.  In a long tail perspective this is the future of identifying relevant market focus.  Niche markets used to imply the identification of an almost impossibly small portion of the market.  Now the word niche helps to identify a set of attributes that makes any grouping relevant.  Niche means that the elements binding that target together are relevant to each member of the target market.

BET CEO Debra Lee recently spoke about the intense consumer research BET does to connect with their target at a recent Nielsen Consumer 360 gathering.    As you can see, these targets don’t look like the traditional broad strokes of a mass media focus.  But you can easily see how each member of these Niche markets would be able to pick out and relate to their groups.

  1. STRIVERS – An ambitious group of opinion leaders aged 20-40. These young leaders are rising in their communities and the corporate world.
  2. CONSCIOUS SISTERS – These are women who are keen on aspects of their culture and spirituality. They focus on family and cooking meals at home.
  3. TECHFLUENTIALS – World ambassadors aged 20-30 who are making the world a little smaller using technology, organizing fundraisers online, using skype, social media and more.
  4. BRIGHT HORIZONS – This tech-savvy segment is focused on education and friends, gaming, mobile and social media.

BET reinforces the importance of niche.  It’s not about large age or gender groups.  It’s not about income or ethnicity.  It’s not even about values and behaviors.  It’s about all of these combined and it look like a long tail niche target strategy to deliver a relevant message to a receptive consumer.

Filed under Marketing, TV Tagged with , , , ,

Little Monsters = Target Market?

June 20, 2011 1 Comment

What is a Little Monster?  Hard to describe in traditional target speak. Yet Lady GaGa’s little monsters have turned into a juggernaut with undeniable force. Lady GaGa's Target Market Little Monsters “In the past year, Lady Gaga was the first artist to reach 1 billion views on YouTube; she beat President Barack Obama to 10 million Facebook fans (she’s now closing in on 35 million); and most recently, she was first Twitter user to acquire 10 million followers.,”  touts a Mashable case study.

Again, what’s a Little Monster?  Is it a particular age?  Sex? Income level?  Does it fall in a VALS  category or a Prizm or Mosaic cluster?  Yes, all of the above. And yet none of the above by itself captures the little monster.

Marketers continue to be challenged with understanding and defining their target consumer.  Lady Gaga is a great case for seeing how this is done today, with the social media consumer.  Social media marketing is less about who you are targeting than who chooses to connect with you.  Marketing looks a little more like self selection.  And in order to be successful you need to be definable.  You need to mean something.  And you need to be genuine. Lady GaGa clearly is a champion for everyone who feels like they live outside the mainstream.  A little different:  A little monster.  Brilliant!  Who can’t identify with that?!  Lady GaGa’s success can easily be seen through the traditional lens of the 4ps as each is uniquely crafted to the Little Monster.

Is social media the right viewpoint for target market definition?  Given it’s enormity, growth and , transparent nature the answer “Yes!”.  Social media is a requirement for target market definition.  Pay attention to who self selects and hone your positioning to that Little Monster!

Filed under Branding, Music, SocialMedia Tagged with , , , , ,

Your Audience is NOT Monogamous

June 3, 2011 Leave a comment

Fill your seats with committed relationships

Building audience relationships fills seats

Consumers for the most part date around.  Sure, you probably have a core audience that is in a committed relationship with you.  But this is usually less than 50% of your audience.  The other 50% of your audience is seeing other people.  How much emphasis should you put on these different levels of audience relationships?

Marriage is your priority.  In market segmentation speak a marriage is your relationship with your rabid fan base.  It’s your heavy users, season ticket holders, your evangelists, and your best friends.  Like any other marriage it takes work to keep it together.  Both your audience and you will likely undergo change throughout the relationship.  Just like a real marriage it takes lots of love and lots of work to sustain this commitment.

Most of your audience is dating you.   Medium or light users are how these segments are characterized.    They are trying you on… seeing if you are a fit.  In order to woo this audience you need to also show the love.  But be careful not to do so at the expense of your committed relationships.  For instance, offering discounts only to folks you are dating sends a really bad message to your married partners!

Quite often organizations put too much emphasis on dating or even non dating relationships.  Constant reinforcement for developing new audiences can result in churning and a vicious cycle of new recruitment to replace audience.

Point is; it’s all about relationships. Everybody is important.  Everything is important. Show the love, do the work and build audience relationships.

Filed under Branding, Ticketed Events Tagged with , ,

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