Modern Marketing: An Allegory

The above video will teach you all you need to know about modern marketing.

The waterfall represents media budgets.

The spinning platform represents the day-to-day changes in business.

The slide represents freshly-minted executives, sliding into a bizarre situation they don’t understand. How can we be certain these are executives? Because they hit the ground running frantically, without asking anyone what they’re doing, or why. This is widely known as “process”.

The various penguins represent media: TV, radio, print, interactive, social media, and PR.

The penguin that almost always falls down and loses its budget is anything deemed “experimental”, including social media.

The penguin that *always* falls down and loses its budget is mobile.

The women represent media conglomerates.

The audience watching from the sidelines are traditional advertising agencies. Why are they on the sidelines?

They have been disintermediated.

How To Tell A Boomer From A Blogger

I sometimes bristle when people trot out antique notions like “well, the Internet is really only used by teenagers, and they’re not really our audience”.

Still, buried in that nonsense is a chunk of reality. In truth, different generations really do have somewhat different media consumption habits.

For more data and shiny happy charts, go see the interesting new post today over at Marketing Charts and ThirdAge/JWT Boom about how Boomers use new media.

Some highlights (note they’re defining Boomers as people over 40):

• E-mailers (96%) and photo sharers (84%)
• Generally not bloggers (67% said “no interest”) or social networkers (only 22% participate)
• Surprisingly open (93%) to viral or word-of-mouth marketing
• 80% use a broadband connection at home

In general, I think it’s fair to say that most Boomers still think of themselves as consumers of information rather than publishers or participants. They are a lean-back generation, not a dive-in generation.

Also, they are more likely to live a private online life than a public one.

Demographers would argue whether I’m a very late Boomer or an early Gen X-er. But I am over 40 and therefore would fit this research definition as being a Boomer.

If you believe this research, my blogging and participation in social media places me fairly far outside the norm.

Fine with me. Who aspires to be typical?