I know a boy who is crazy about Minecraft. Virtually anything with the Minecraft name attached to it gets his attention. Last week, a new update to his gaming platform version was issued and after coming back to earth from his excitement, he went to YouTube to watch his favorite instructional videos. An hour later, he went on-line to the library website so he could place a hold on a new Minecraft novel. He Skyped with his cousin and they played the new version together on Xbox Live.
This is the activity of a 10-year old. What will his media consumption be like in 10 years? How will you as a business adapt?
- He only knows of radio from the time his Dad spent in the industry.
- He’ll tolerate my CD choices if we’re in the car without a DVD player.
- Virtually every one of his favorite television shows are watched from a DVR.
- He has no interest in the “news of the day” (yet) but he handily will Google the daily weather forecast.
- He hasn’t yet earned the responsibility of his own email address, but he experimented with a daily blog for a time.
- We won’t allow him a cell phone, but he regrettably learned how to download and install apps on my old smartphone.
Confirmed this week, YouTube now has more viewers in the 18-49 demographic than any single cable television channel. I’m guessing that it’s even higher for the 10-year old demographic. How we watch video is overwhelmingly turning to smaller screens and mobile devices. My son would rather watch a video on the 7-inch screen from his tablet on YouTube than use our somewhat nicely outfitted home theater.
Here’s the part where I say, “In my day…”
In my day, we had 4 maybe 5 channels before cable came to our block in town. Our “tablets” were hand-held football games with little blinking red dots. There were record stores with something called vinyl and cassettes. A VCR was sparingly used but rarely programmed correctly. If you missed an episode of MASH, you missed it and would never have the chance to see it again. It was silly to pay good money to buy a movie when you could see it in the dark for a couple of dollars.
Today, our viewing activity is in no way controlled by time…and frankly, unless it’s a live sporting event, we’re very much in control of our own media consumption. Consumers watch what they want, when they want, and even how they want. Cable, satellite, streaming services…”unplugging” from wired services for TV has become cool. There’s no appointment necessary to watch anything.
How a business is going to market to the next generation will have to change…and fast. Unfortunately, many business owners are resistant. They still feel the need (or fear) to be in the phonebook. When businesses review marketing, they consider television to be a premium outlet. Newspaper unbelievably still gets a healthy investment of marketing dollars. Radio is also a consideration. They can always print a few flyers or hang out on a corner with a sandwich-board sign. So far, digital marketing on the so-called New Media is a consideration for most only as a site to plant their URL and wait for the “traditional media” to start drawing in customers.
For a small business, YouTube represents a massive opportunity to attach your message to active consumers. Messages can be controlled and directed to exactly the who/what/when/where/how of their consumers. And you have their permission and endorsement to engage with these consumers at very little cost or inconvenience.
Search advertising, display marketing, retargeting, video streaming messages, geographical and contextual targeting, analytics…if these terms sound foreign to you, you’re not a 10-year old boy. But in 10-years, that little boy is going to be looking for you. Will he find you?
Contact Maudience today and we’ll introduce you to New Media Marketing.
