Mind Your X's and Y's

Satisfying the 10 Cravings of a New Generation of Consumers

Lisa Johnson

• Publisher: Free Press
• Year: 2006
• Print ISBN: 9780743277518
• eBook ISBN: 9780743293846
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Today's 18-to-40-year-olds make for a notoriously elusive group of consumers: they're savvy, sophisticated, and particular. They're all but immune to traditional advertising and have an instinctive sense of quality and fair pricing. Inundated with choices, they are drawn to brands that satisfy not just what they need, but what they crave. At the same time, these consumers are spending money like it's going out of style. Generation X has firmly refuted its slacker reputation and is nearing the height of its earning potential. Generation Y has more buying power than any previous generation of teens and twentysomethings. But how to win their attention and loyalty? In Mind Your X's and Y's, Lisa Johnson proves that the buying habits of 18-to-40-year-olds can be anticipated. Johnson, coauthor of Don't Think Pink and a leading marketing consultant, pinpoints the new rules of engagement for this Connected Generation. Based on her own and others' groundbreaking research, she looks into the heart of the Gen X and Y psyche to identify its ten core cravings -- for adventure, for high-concept design, for new families and social networks, and for personal storytelling, to name a few. This revolutionary book is packed with fascinating case studies of established and breakaway brands from every major industry, interviews with dozens of maverick thinkers and hundreds of consumers, and numerous revealing statistics. Johnson analyzes the scope of each craving to determine how it drives specific buying behaviors and offers relevant data that illustrate its impact. M ind Your X's and Y's equips anyone who wants to reach these consumers -- brand managers and their advertising, online, creative, packaging, events, and promotions teams; small-business owners and their marketing staff; advertising agencies and specialists -- with the know-how to transform market research into profitable strategies. Members of Generations X and Y are the most coveted and hard-to-reach consumers in the marketplace. Mind Your X's and Y's is a master class in how to create compelling brands for this Connected Generation.

One

Shine the Spotlight

Extreme Personalization
Gives Marketing a New Face

Chris Murphy sits down in his bedroom to open the mail. The walls are lined with ribbons, trophies, and newspaper clippings.¹ The headlines say it all: Murphy has the right stuff. State’s top receiver eyes the championship. The rest of the room is your average teenage haven—an Xbox on the floor, CDs piled next to an iPod, and a stack of comic books in the corner. The pages are frayed and worn, but seventeen-year-old Chris hasn’t spent much time reading comic books in the last year. He’s been too busy with school, social life, and football. Chris is a senior and the star receiver on his high school team. He’s already tasted the thrill of state championships. Next up, college.

Several times a week, a new batch of letters arrives from schools across the nation. They all have the same goal—recruiting Chris. He tears into one crisp envelope after another: “Dear Chris,” “To Mr. Murphy.” They bear formal seals and read like textbooks. At first the attention was flattering. “They all want me?” Chris thought with amazement. Soon it became difficult to separate one school from another.

He opens an envelope from the University of Oregon in Eugene. Poised to throw the paper on the trash pile, Chris stops. It’s a partial comic book. “That’s cool,” he thinks, and starts flipping through the pages. Each frame looks professionally drawn. The only thing that sets it apart from his own stack of comic books is the black and white pages—National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) recruitment bylaws prevent all schools from sending color materials. He’s about to set it down and head out for a run when he realizes there’s something very different about this comic.

Mouth open in amazement, Chris flips back to the front cover. The whole comic book is about him. The title page reads, “The Amazing O-Men. Mild-mannered Chris Murphy or Catch-everything C. Mack? A Hero Is Born.” In the top right-hand corner is a personalized “C. Mack” logo intertwined with the Oregon O. Chris is the star of the story, which begins as he joins the Oregon Ducks and starts his collegiate football career, and each frame is drawn with a remarkable likeness to Chris himself. He methodically scans each and every page, then jumps from his bed and dashes out the door. By the end of the week, all his friends, his parents, and even his football coach have read the comic.

For the next few months, Chris eagerly awaits new installments. He receives a new section every couple weeks that takes the story just a little bit further. It’s the first envelope he opens when the mail arrives and the only college mailout he reads from top to bottom.

One week, he receives page 13.

“Here’s the snap and a quick pass to Chris Murphy.”

The next frame shows an ESPN broadcaster looking out over a packed Autzen Stadium, rising to his feet as he describes each play.

The next page is blank. A brief note tells Chris that he’ll receive the final piece when he visits the Eugene campus to check out the school in person.

Chris pulls out his duffel bag and begins packing.

College sports are big business. Money, prestige, and school reputations are all at stake, and everyone wants to snag the hottest high-school prospects. In the spring of a student’s junior year, colleges begin sending mail to potential student athletes. Most schools work with the “more-is-better” philosophy, flooding their prospects with letters and materials. The University of Oregon has taken a vastly different approach.

Back in 2002, Oregon decided to differentiate itself by combining traditional form letters with graphically rich mailers of different sizes, layouts, and formats. Their aim was to send their prospects more information of higher quality than any other school in the country. Every piece of mail was aligned with the Oregon football “brand”—an in-your-face, cutting-edge look that infuses everything from the green and yellow uniforms to the school’s state-of-the-art facilities.

In 2003, the Oregon football staff and a team of twenty sports-marketing interns launched a poster series that featured action shots of uniformed players (the face in shadow) with the recruit’s number running through the Oregon “O.” The player’s name was spelled in bold letters at the top of the poster and the bottom copy read, “The Future of Oregon Football.” The idea was to help each prospect build a relationship with Oregon by visualizing himself playing in the Ducks uniform—as if he were already part of the team.

The first posters were sent to a handful of prospects with a personal note from the Oregon coaching staff. People were thrilled. Many recruits mentioned the personalized posters to their coaches, requested extra copies, or even contacted the recruiting staff to inquire about Oregon for the first time. The posters were used to welcome prospects and their families during official school visits. Opposing coaches mentioned the posters to Oregon’s staff with considerable envy as they noticed them framed, front and center, in many living rooms during their home-recruiting visits. The posters were clearly doing their job.

It was time to step it up. With the 2004 recruiting season on the horizon, the Oregon staff challenged themselves to create a full campaign that was targeted, personal, and innovative.

Deryk Gilmore, director of player development, and his team of student interns set four key objectives for 2004:

1. Organize a separate mailing campaign for individuals who receive a written offer from Oregon.
2. Individualize all mail in the interest of recruits and their personalities.
3. Create specific identities and logos for recruits that bond them with Oregon football.
4. Strive to be innovative—constantly redefine the cutting edge.

They dubbed the campaign “Coming to Oregon,” and launched several initiatives, including the wildly successful personal comic books. Oregon football coaches also sent handwritten notes to each prospect on a weekly basis and outlined their favorite drills and training techniques in graphic postcards mailed to the prospects’ high-school coaches.

In the late stages of recruiting, coaches also brought in magazine mock-ups. They entered players’ homes with mock-up copies of sports magazines featuring the recruits on the cover wearing Oregon uniforms. Instead of showing magazines depicting former Oregon stars, the marketing team decided to help recruits visualize what a career at Oregon could produce.

Parents were included in the process, too. The team created a diploma series, which reinforced the school’s commitment to academics and to helping their sons graduate with high standing.²

The Craving: Shine the Spotlight

The Connected Generation is eager for personal recognition. They want to make a difference—or at least a splash. The marketplace is waking up to a national obsession that sees ordinary citizens make their mark, achieve celebrity, and rise to prominence. Whether it’s singing on American Idol, writing a book or blog, getting their video on Current TV, or being celebrated as the next great surfer, this generation longs to be recognized for who they are and what they bring to the party.

People are looking for their big break; they enjoy being big fish in small ponds. They feel ready to be known, and ready to have their dreams and experiences acknowledged and legitimized. Hand over the microphone and start the cameras rolling. Give them the backstage pass and the insider treatment. These folks are itching to stand out, stand up, and be celebrated with their names in lights (or print, or pixels).

In response, companies are waking up to the power of personalization and highly engaging tools that celebrate individuals’ talents and potential. Personalized license plates, stamps, and mailing labels were just baby steps. Today, a whole slew of high-end products put you smack in the center of the action. Companies large and small are getting in on the opportunity. Masterfoods has taken M&M’s color customization process one step further. The candies can now be printed with two lines of text, up to eight characters on every bite-size piece. Consumers can have their own custom-colored, personally branded treats for $9.49 for an 8 ounce bag (a plain old bag of M&M’s of the same size runs about $2.85).³

New York independent art and design catalog company Elsewares (www.elsewares.com) offers a custom six-panel comic drawn to order by artist Mark Weber, whose work has run in The New York Times, the Village Voice, Rolling Stone, and Playboy. Hand-drawn, 8x11 art on 11x14 acid-free paper, the custom comic strip is a cool $150. If books are more your thing, husband-and-wife team J. S. Fletcher and Kathy Newbern will write you into one of their romance novels. For about $50, the intended couple can relive their romance in one of eight personalized books that range from “mild” to “wild,” incorporating into the text not only you and your sweetie’s names, but also your hometowns, occupations, pet names, hair color, perfume, and so on. At Highly Flammable Toys (www.highlyflammabletoys.com) film-school grad Russ Tucker will feature you on a custom 8½x12 inch movie poster ($95, plus shipping). You can add film critic “quotes” and a list of fake credits.

En masse, customers are leaving the audience and taking the stage—ready to stand in the spotlight. Brands that tap into this powerful need with highly creative and customized efforts will get not only some great buzz, but a whole new level of loyalty and brand ownership to match.

Why We Crave the Spotlight

• 1. We’re hardwired.
  • It’s human nature to crave attention. We all want to be recognized and celebrated—whether it’s on the football field or in our daily lives. We want to be understood, supported, desired, and even courted. We want to feel special.
• 2. We’re burned out.
  • We’ve all spent years being yelled at from the television screen. We don’t want to be told anymore to buy the latest detergent or open a savings account. Consumers—especially media-savvy Generations X and Y—are cynical and extremely educated about the entire marketing process. Add in a collective obsession with celebrities, and people everywhere are longing to experience the insider treatment. They want to feel like someone really cares about their dreams and desires.
• 3. We’ve seen what’s possible.
  • The quest for a high profile is now entrenched in our cultural fabric. Everyone knows a handful of people who have been plucked from the ordinary and enjoyed their fifteen minutes of fame. It’s fun to watch and observe real lives, and we feel like our own days might be just as interesting. New venues such as MySpace.com and Current TV, plus podcasts, blogs, reality television, and interactive Web sites, allow us to share our unique personalities and talents with the world. These new tools have made it simple to launch us and our friends into the public eye.
• 4. There’s a sense of entitlement.
  • Members of the Connected Generation see the market intimately tied to their own lives. It’s a web of opportunity to explore, not a hierarchical structure to climb or conquer. “I deserve it and I’m ready for it now,” is the common attitude. This group is not looking for a slow build, and they don’t care about paying their dues.
• 5. Every industry has a celebrity culture.
  • Celebrated experts are everywhere today—no matter how mini or mundane the industry. From sought-after eyebrow shaper Anastasia (one of Oprah’s favorites) to celebrity chefs who teach thousands of home cooks how to make thirty-minute meals, to plastic surgeons and dentists who orchestrate extreme makeovers, to landscapers, carpenters, and mechanics who outfit homes, yards, and cars, people have become famous for doing even the most behind-the-
    scenes work with flair and personality.
  • Thanks to the proliferation of new media, including a vast wilderness of television cable channels, there are a greater number of people who receive widespread recognition and global profile. Add reality and unscripted television to th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Colophon
• Also by Lisa Johnson
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• IntroductionThe Rise of the Connected Generation
• 1. Shine the Spotlight Extreme Personalization Gives Marketing a New Face Adventure Takes Its Place as the New Social Currency The New Shape of “Families” and Social Networks Everyday Objects Get Sharp, Delicious, Intuitive Design Editors and Filters Gain New Prominence The Rejection of Push Advertising and the Rising Influence of Peer-to-peer Networks Connected Citizens Explore Their Creative Power and Influence Change Everyday Activities Are Orchestrated to Deliver a Dramatic Sense of Theater Spiritual Hunger and Modern Media Find Common Ground Redefining Volunteerism and the Meaning of Contribution
• 2. Raise My Pulse
• 3. Make Loose Connections
• 4. Give Me Brand Candy
• 5. Sift Through the Clutter
• 6. Keep it Underground
• 7. Build it Together
• 8. Bring it to Life
• 9. Go Inward
• 10. Give Back
• ConclusionThe New Players You Need to Know
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• About the Authors