In advertising today, brands must amplify their message by reaching out across all digital destinations to secure their space in the limelight; you have to put on the right show to attract the targeted segment; particularly the young 20 plus something generation. Ironically, delivering a message today is more challenging than ever. The ubiquitous catch phrase of ‘marketing to millennials’ is incredibly perplexing and pervasive in our culture – the only rationale, apparently, is to insure that commerce grabs the cash they have to burn.
An iconic beauty brand like Estée Lauder for example; touted as the “global leader in prestige cosmetics and fragrances,” is experiencing an incredible resurgence thanks to a microscopically dissected demographic of purchasing potential defined as the millennial channel. Tracking this growth curve across categories, commerce is positioned to utilize acquisitions like Smashbox to target the millennial directly.
To that end, “Recently, Fabrizio Freda, the President and CEO, announced the revitalization of two of the company’s iconic brands – Estée Lauder and Clinique. The revitalization strategy includes introducing new make-up formulations for Clinique and new skin creams for Estée Lauder. A new spokesperson will become the face of the Estée Lauder brand. The intent is to make the brands more attractive to the millennial customer.”
As an affordable luxury, Estee Lauder knows that they can mine this niche for a significant boost to the antiquated effort of ‘old-world advertising’; what used to be accomplished with mixed media print campaigns no longer suffices. So what is it that brands are focusing on when marketing points to a digitally savvy generation? They’re succeeding by curating the following messages:
Who do you want to keep company with—brands like Toms shoes and Warby Parker have paved the way for the model of social responsibility; a great challenge to a new generation, its heart is in the right place, fostering proactive instead of apathetic consumers.
The experience is the ‘thing— how does a watch fit with an outfit, an afternoon, an entire life? With the pulse of fashion always accessible online, brands find that creating the entire experiential vision stokes awareness, spend, and loyalty.
Merging with the trending climate— the word ‘cool’ has been around so long it’s practically groovy. Brands are utilizing what social media and online trends are pulsing to permeate their vertical with what’s deemed most cutting edge.
Is this really innovative marketing? It seems that everyone’s hiking the same route. Where’s the neoteric thinking? Commerce is essentially diminishing personal preference by proffering to a homogeneous, generic, big-data driven millennial cloned mainstream.
The Internet provides the opportunity for social extremity. It has also fostered a culture that is obsessed with being in the know on everything that life has to offer; twenty four hours a day, seven days a week.
The millennial dilemma; big data, like big brother, asserts that it knows more about the individual ‘you, than you do.