I’m fascinated by people who play slot machines. I have nothing against it; I just don’t understand it. My brother has a buddy who goes to the casinos quite a bit and I went with them on a trip a while back. While his pal plays craps for pretty decent stakes and blackjack, he also spent time on the slots. He’s definitely a sophisticated gambler and yet he chooses to play something that minimizes his skill as a gambler and is, in my mind, the equivalent of buying a lottery ticket. Why do I bring this up?
I got an email this morning about a new eMarketer report on Millennials. It focuses, of course, on social media as well as, I gather, more traditional forms. The gist of it is:
Many marketers are struggling to find the best ways to use social media to reach millennials. The vast majority who choose to measure fans, friends and followers as a metric of success are bound to be disappointed. Millennials value experiences and engagement with brands, and will talk about those things within their social circles. They tend to “like” and then “un-like” as easily as they adopt, then drop various technologies and sites.
It spurred a thought about the slot machines and media plans. Too many marketers STILL just put their dough in the slot (read that as spend money in media) and pull the handle. They’re minimizing the skills they have as marketers by not spending more time thinking about the “why” of their media and too much time on the “how”, meaning the channels, without a real end in mind. That, by the way, if you can get past the “we did this last year so let’s build on that” mentality. It’s great to want to be in social but why? How often does the slots player think about exactly what the end is? Mostly, I would think, they’re just pulling the handle and taking their chances.
Make any sense?
Consult Keith 