Companies quit blogging. How about targeting Millennials?

Recently I have read an article in USA Today “More companies quit blogging, go with Facebook instead”[1]. The article revealed that more and more companies tend to quit using blogs as one of their marketing tools at the favor of traditional social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr.

As indicated in the research of the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth[2] the number of top companies being involved in blogging activities dropped from 50% in 2010 to 37% in 2011. The study further reveals that only 23% of Fortune 500 companies kept up with a blogging in 2011. On the contrary, this number was steadily rising in previous years. 2011 was, thereby, the first year when the figure remained flat. The reasons why blogging does not seem to appeal as a useful marketing tool to businesses include dropping consumers’ interest in blogging at a favor of social media sites.

The Pew Research Center[3] revealed in their study that in 2010 the percentage of adults between 18 and 33 (Millennials!) interested in blogging dropped by 2 points in comparison to 2008. OkCupid, for instance, whose blog has been graded as one of the 25 top ones by Times magazine[4] stopped updating its content in April 2011. Thus, companies tend to shift from blogging towards social media sites as they believe they can reach more customers there. For instance, a spokesperson of Bank of America, T.J. Crawford stated that they stopped using blogs as marketing tools since they preferred to focus on their social media strategies as the company “(…) want to be where our [Bank of America] customers are”. Customers are reached faster there and more data on them is obtained.

Companies have a tendency to fail making blogs attractive to consumers as, as indicated by Lou Hoffman, CEO of the Hoffmann Agency, and information displayed there tends to be dull as they attempt to use blogs for informative purposes rather to create a band community. Such an approach is a missed opportunity for some companies who could use blogging for (1) generating leads or (1) creating more brand loyal consumers especially from the Millennial Generation.

Millennial Generation, called by Nick Shore[5]  in his 2012 MTV study “Generation Innovation”, are people born between 1980s and 2000s. Born with the presence of the Internet, these are creators, entrepreneurs and innovators that have a deep desire to connect with their fellows through forums, festivals, happenings, co-working spaces and others to fulfill their relatively strong need of belonging and sharing ideas. They are tech-savvy and impatient. In the interview, Shore mentioned that they “have a lot of emotional heft”. The way to market them is to create messages which are “meaningful, quick and shiny”[6]. Indeed, social media addresses all these aspects. Since the Millennials are aging, they are likely to get jobs with higher disposable income which makes them more affluent and more valuable to businesses as they can spend more on their goods[7]. With Millennials of being a part of a group, blogs pose opportunity for marketers. This is as blogging could further feed these consumers with emotional data (emotional marketing, so e.g. anything related to causes) to create a brand community which they would value and become loyal to. This, however, could be of a benefit if the content of such blogs would be indeed meaningful and shiny to them.

References:

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[1] Yu, R., 2012. More companies quit blogging, go with Facebook instead. USA Today. Available at: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/story/2012-04-19/corporate-blogging/54419982/1 [Accessed on May 5, 2012]

[2] University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, 2012. Latest news. Available at: http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/University+of+Massachusetts+Dartmouth [Accessed on May 5, 2012]

[3] Keeter, S., Taylor, P., 2010. Millennials: A portrait of Generation Next. Paw Research Centre. Available at: http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/files/2010/10/millennials-confident-connected-open-to-change.pdf [Accessed on May 5, 2012]

[4] McCracken, H., 2011. The Best Blogs of 2011. Time. Available at: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2075431_2075447_2075478,00.html [Accessed on May 6, 2012]

[5] Katz, J., 2012. Exclusive Interview with MTV Insights on Generation Innovation with Nick Shore, Future Trends LinkedIn Group. Post from April 24, 2012. Full interview available at: http://megamashup.tumblr.com/post/21713959127/exclusive-interview-generation-innovation-with?utm_source=LI&utm_medium=NMM&utm_content=BL&utm_campaign=MMMFT04242012 [Accessed on April 24, 2012]

[6] Millennial Marketing, 2012. To engage Millennials, Be Meaningful, Quick and Shiny. Available at: http://millennialmarketing.com/ [Accessed on May 5, 2012]

[7] Brand Amplitude LLC, 2012. Look Who’s A Millennial Now. Marketing to Millennials. Available at: http://www.brandamplitude.com/blog/item/look-who-s-a-millennial-now?category_id=18 [Accessed on May 5, 2012]

Tippexperience 2

I was watching some videos on YouTube and, to my surprise, I came across a new version of the Tippex advert which we discussed some time ago in one of the previous classes. The first version was about a bear and a hunter and a viewer could play with various scenarios in the ad like "the hunter feeds the bear" or "the hunter shoots the bear". It turns out that they have launched the second version  of the advert under the name Tippexperience 2. I presume that the previous campaign was so successful that they tried the interactive approach once more. This time the advert is about the same bear and and the same hunter who celebrate bear's birthday and experience various, let's call it "events" during the time. I recommend you to type in "2012" and "2013" :). Enjoy! To see the advert, please visit  http://www.youtube.com/tippexperience2

Best regards,

Natalia

What does it really mean to be customer-oriented?

A recent blog post of a former colleague of mine caught my attention the other day. His post was a comment on the definition of the customer-oriented corporation and what attributes characterize organizations with a profound customer-oriented focus. The post it self was made in Norwegian and may be found here, but I wanted to share the views of my friend with you in order to facilitate debate.

In this post the author argues that a customer-oriented corporation is one whom strives to focus its organization, including leaders, processes and culture to efficiently meet the changing demands and preferences of its customers. He also argues that customer-orientation in turn remains a concept tied firmly to the internal activities of the corporation, from production and development of goods and services to after-sale support and retention. In contrary to this term related concepts such as customer value (customer satisfaction using the product to accomplish a required task) and customer experience (the sum of the experiences gathered throughout the procurement and utilization of the product) are distinct from the internal, and largely cultural, aspects and may be treated separately.

Within the premise of this discussion the author describes several consumer trends that influence modern day business in general and internet based businesses in particular. It is argued that the emergence of four customer types have changed the way corporations engage in consumer behavior. The types put forth are the self-service customer (customers experiencing an ever increasing pressure on time and require new solutions where they may self solve the necessary tasks when available), the social customer (whom socialize and interact in increasingly open media whom cannot be controlled nor censured by corporations), the technological customer (whom by the way new technology has lowered entry-barriers to many markets is blessed with more options and is inherently less loyal) and the demanding customer (whom experience that the new players in the marketplace acknowledges and adapts to their needs and lends the same expectations to established and mature corporations). The combination of these trends in consumer behavior means that the customer makes an increasingly attentive selection in deciding the vendors from whom one acquires product and services. In thus real customer-orientation becomes a competitive advantage to meet the increasing expectations of the customer.

In his closing remarks the author advice business whom seek further engagement with their customer to base their interaction on dialog concerning the selection of products and services made available by the corporation and its partners as well as the customer experience through procurement and within active use of the product or service. In thus the key premise of this dialog should remain with gathering insights to establish:

• Simple and user-friendly physical and digital points of contact
• A general culture of service
• An ability to adopt increasingly complex customer needs (rather than a push-mentality)
• An organizational structure based on customer segments rather than a functional organization.

Given the ever increasing availability and globalization of product offerings we see today I believe customer-orientation has/will become the prevalent form of cultural adoption and product development in the years to come. Businesses will come to realize that the days of industrial prowess must give way to more modern approaches to their value offering such as may be seen with mass customization as the expectations of the individual customer gains even further momentum.  As I see it such a transition will likely be one filled with difficulty for many established players set in their (somewhat outdated) ways. I believe we are entering an era of lurking dangers, but also with profound promise for players whom act accordingly to the new paradigm.