Technology usage is not immune to the lifestyle changes motherhood brings. Moms put the focus on simplicity, convenience and multiuse technologies as they look to keep their families closely linked…
via Digital Tools Help Moms Take Charge – eMarketer.
Who wants to go deep? Increasingly it’s a generational thing. Millennials believe in technology as an empowering force in their lives. Gen X is less convinced. And if you ask a Boomer, they’ll tell you technology invades your privacy and makes you stupid. (Okay, that may be a tad harsh … but you get the point.)
So, it’s not a stretch to posit that if you are predisposed to believing technology makes your life better, you’ll be more willing to activate your experiences. While older consumers remain happy to watch, the younger generations are more willing to “go deep” and interact.
Now, 2010 is the first year that Millennials outnumber Boomers, but not by that much. And Gen X is a blip. For marketers devising campaigns with Depth On Demand™ principles, the “and” factor abides. You need to provide the range of experience that fits both segments — or constituencies — expectations and media habits.
Boomers may not feel comfortable using technology via a user interface or branding application that offers fantastic utility and useful benefits. So they’ll be more swayed by the brand message and, if your creative is effective, will have elevated levels of aided/unaided recall. That’s about it. Top of mind awareness is what you get. For Boomers that’s often all that’s required to instigate a purchase decision.
Millennials, on the other hand, seek out the rewards of going deeper into the brand story by engaging with the brand, its community presence and peer consumers who advocate on its behalf. In the absence of branded content and branding applications that offer engagement and interaction, these consumers are left to seek and find their own conclusions about brands. If the brand itself isn’t participating, then its stewards risk being defined by “the mob” — for better or worse. Plus, in other studies (which I’ll find links for as a follow up), we learn that consumers increasingly find non-participating brands to be irrelevant. After all, as this eMarketer report says, Millennial Moms find “empowerment,” “help” and “betterment” through “technology” — which I interpret to mean “interaction.”
Depth On Demand 