Talk Bite: Brands Flunk At Connecting With Millennial Moms

Brands don’t flatter yourselves, you’re not connecting with the Millennial Mom. In order to make purposeful connections with Millennial Moms you need to first really understand what makes this Mom tick and then create communications that resonate. The word “communications” is meant to be broad as just creating an advertising campaign won’t convince her. She can see through the smoke and mirror. She’s looking beyond the advertising campaign and into the soul of the companies she chooses for herself and her family.

So, who is this powerful woman and what do you need to know about her to engage her and have her on your brand’s side.

The Millennial Mom was born sometime between 1977-1998. She was raised in a child-centric time by Boomers, remembers 9/11 and is surviving a tumlutous economy. She has different values than previous generation’s Moms and she chooses companies on different citeria. She is highly educated (most educated generation to-date), self-confident, tech-savvy and ambitious. Education, technology and the feminist voice of her parents’ generation have made her feel empowered. She’s comfortable with rewriting the rules to create what fits her and her lifestyle the best. Since the Internets launched in her coming-of-age she is a natural multi-taker who uses technology to her advantage. She’s seeking stability and control. She’s pragmatic, loyal and optimisitc. She really will give you the benefit of the doubt but she’s skeptical that you can’t or won’t follow through. You can call her an Optimistic Realist. She values tradition and talks to her mom almost every day on her cell phone. She celebrates diversity (after all Millennials are the most racially diverse generation group) and is more accepting and less judgemental­–­especially of other moms and their parenting choices. And most importantly to her, she’s really into being mom. The sense of connectivity and joy family brings is key to what today’s Millennial Mom is after.

Her key influencers: her mom and/or mom-like figures, other moms in her social circle, online moms in forums, search, tradition, nostalgia, her kids.

So, with this in mind, here are some strategies on how your brand can evolve to better engage the heart, mind and wallet of the Millennial Mom:

• Move beyond the “look at me” image. Don’t just shout at her with superficial claims and benefits selling a product or service. Stand for something greater and more meaningful. She’s into corporations doing good so embrace a purpose or a cause.
• Don’t just make surface changes. A nifty advertising campaign won’t move the needle with this audience. Instead invest first in changing your company culture first. Millennial Moms will be able to cut through the BS. Be transparent.
• Involve her. Ask her for her opinion or idea. Remember she’s bright and confident enough to speak up to share honest feedback.
• Take up Utilitarian Marketing. Give her something useful. Help her be a better mom.

What are other strategies for connecting with the Millennial Mom?

Purpose with a Capital “P”

The preamble:
I recommend all strategic/brand marketers read these three books*:
“It’s not what you sell, it’s what you stand for.” – Roy Spence
“Start with why.” – Simon Sinek
“ZAG” – Marty Neumeier

The amble:

If I had to choose only two Planning paradigms to use forever on a desert island, one of them would be Purpose.

A lot of marketers talk about Purpose. And with good reason. It’s a brand’s reason for being.

Somet clients say the reason they are in business is to make money. To increase shareholder value. Okay. But does that story sell anything? Will customers jump on board simply to help a brand make money? No. Will people talk about that brand? Doubtful.

Purpose-driven brands get talked about.

What is a brand Purpose? Let me regurgitate a little wisdom from Roy Spence. I like his definition: It’s a brand’s reason for being, beyond making money.

Put another way, what is the change this brand aims to affect in the world?

Brand Purpose is distinct from brand values, or beliefs. Values and beliefs are passive. Descriptive. A brand’s Purpose is active. Purpose sets a brand on a mission to DO something. And therein lies its power.

Here’s one example. We recently evolved one of our brands; we had been saying they stand for “spontaneity.” Now they stand for “Thrill.” These two words are related, but “spontaneity” wasn’t a mission. It merely described the shopping mindset they hoped to deliver on. Calling it Thrill makes it more active. This brand is out to Thrill you, in every channel, even in little ways. (Lucky for us, the brand delivers on this operationally; its own bit of difference in a crowded parity category.) To Thrill was a bigger ambition.

Other (better) examples of Purpose-driven brands are all around us. Look at the most inspiring startups; many are born out of Purpose. Take Kickstarter. It’s purpose is to fuel creative projects. Is it making money? Nobody cares; we’re all talking about how the ARTISTS are making money – that’s Kickstarter delivering on its Purpose. Even Facebook never set out to make billions. Instead, it set out to change the world. In his IPO filing letter, Zuck wrote, “We don’t build services so we can make money. We make money so we can build services.” Dear CMOs, CEOs, and CFOs, think about that.

These Purpose-driven brands get our attention, our conversations, and our fandom.

Let’s take a step back. When planning your brand, there are many ways in. Such as, cultural context, targeting influencers, earned media, creating killer content, choice architecture, challenger brand marketing, blue oceans, changing habits, participation marketing … the list of constructs goes on and on. But before a brand gets to any of that, it must first know itself, and what mission it’s on. It must start with a Purpose. Why does this company/brand exist? To change what in the world?

A clearly articulated answer makes everything else much easier. Since marketing budgets are never big enough to do all want, we have to make choices. A brand Purpose makes these choices easy. When we cooperate with vendors and channel partners, or even other brands, a clear brand Purpose makes it easy to brief them; your partners understand exactly what you’re trying to do, and they can run with it. Internally, a clear brand Purpose will inspire lateral thinking, and loosen your process from incremental year-over-year comp planning. It will breed original strategies, and tactics your competition wouldn’t think of. These become “exponential ideas.” They lead to exponential results.

Purpose gives a company a reason to act, and it gives its customers a reason to talk. Put another way, people don’t get very excited about features, benefits, and copy points. They’ll get excited about a brand on a mission.

So, how do you decide on a brand Purpose? There are a few useful tools. In the book ZAG, the Different/Better matrix, and “The only …” mad lib exercise. Or, follow the many great examples in Mr. Spence’s book, from brands like Southwest Airlines, BMW, WalMart, and the PGA.

My advice is to go ahead and be lofty. Yes, anchor it in your category/core competency, but your Purpose HAS to be emotional. It has to fulfill a fundamental human need. (For a short list of 5, check Jim Stengel’s book, Grow.) For example, instead of your purpose being “To consistently deliver the widest assortment of widgets to Moms,” try something more elevated, like “To turn a woman’s closet into the place dreams come true.” Or more realistically, “To eradicate disappointment from every woman’s closet.” (Given a few days of C-level thinking, these start to get better.)

Another tip: when you write a brand Purpose, don’t phrase it as a goal. “To become the #1 top of mind widget-maker in America” is not a Purpose. Your Purpose is different than a measurable objective. Think of Purpose as a rallying cry. Something that will inspire your customers and employees alike. The brand’s raison d’etre. If your objectives are the finish line, the Purpose is why you’re running toward it.

Why do we root for the athlete who’s family member is sick or dying? Because they aren’t merely playing to win. They are playing with Purpose, and we are riveted. That story becomes THE story. Same goes for brands. If you’re playing with a Purpose, people will watch, and talk. It leads to the kind of support that moves the bottom line exponentially.

Dear CMO, if you haven’t articulated your Purpose, please go back. Do yourself a favor. Take the first step first. Dear marketing strategists/planners, do the same. If you do it well and refer to it often, it will give your brand not only direction, but momentum as well.

For more thoughts on how to frame a brand’s Purpose, click HERE. (“The 3 Sizes of Purpose.”)

* There are many other good books about brand Purpose, but I like these ones.

**  The other would be Disruption/ZAG. Together with Purpose, a brand has a one-two punch that puts it leaps and bounds ahead.

TALK BITE: 6 HABITS OF STRATEGIC PLANNING

A Jedi’s strength flows from the Force and a Planner’s strength flows from embracing these 6 essential habits.

Anticipate: ask “what’s possible?;” practice peripheral vision

Think Critically: question everything; reframe problems; challenge current beliefs/processes

Interpret: don’t assume (you know what assuming will cause); synthesize info before forming a viewpoint; be rational; build and test your hypothesis

Decide: avoid “analysis paralysis by: using process to your benefit, not worrying about perfection and taking and owning a stand

Align: foster open dialogue & build trust; take time to really understand others’ agendas; don’t bury tough issues instead bring them to the surface and hash them out

Learn: continually grow and improve and don’t ever think that you’re too good to get better

Thanks for the reminder, Inc. Now, go forward and use the force.

TALKABLE WORK STRATEGY #8: USE SCARCITY

Limited edition. Offer ends soon. The club you can’t get in to. “The iPad is on back order.”

The concept of Scarcity has been around forever. It seems the rarest of things not only becomes more coveted, but more talked about. Used correctly, the Scarcity dynamic can be used deliberately to create conversation around a brand.

It’s simple supply and demand. Be less available, and be awesome. Focus your energy on making something better; something people really want, rather than making enough mediocre stuff for everybody. In sales, that will let you charge more. In marketing, that same concept can give your message greater value. The first person to discover something great can delight their friends; that’s called Social Currency.

A great time to use Scarcity is for a pre-launch. Movies, video games, and rule-changing tech launches all use Scarcity pretty regularly. They seed the story with key influencers, giving them artifacts from the game, movie, or the product before anyone else can get it.

But you can use Scarcity in many other ways. Pop-up shops are a form of Scarcity; only open in a unique location for a limited time. It becomes an event. Instead of an advertising idea, it becomes an idea that can be advertised. Luxury brands are using Scarcity well, especially in Social Media. If the hoi polloi can all “like” a brand they can’t afford, luxury brands can maintain the allure by limiting access. (It’s a real Zag to what most brands assume is the zillion-fan win in this channel. The strategy itself is almost newsworthy.)

To get the most out of a Scarcity strategy, it helps to have a strong influencer base. You can treat them, delight them, use them to incite conversation. The best part is, the brand impressions are organic. The customers become your media. They have a tangible reason to talk. The buzz is real. Even if nobody can get their hands on it, everyone will be talking about it. Brand win.

Check out 7 more strategies to get people talking about your brand, HERE.

Mobile Phones Key To Researching Brand Conversations

What gets people talking about brands? Hmm…Chief Strategy Officer Brandon Murphy describes how we’re going to find out.

“22squared is an agency with expertise in consumer advocacy and conversation generation around a brand. Insights from their previous research, titled ‘Why People Talk: 8 Ways to Inspire Conversation Around Your Brand,’ can be found on Slideshare…”

Read the full story here: PSFK.com

Talkable work strategy 5: Enable Expression

The oldest form of branding via expression is probably the logo t-shirt (1969). Even today, a guy in a Nike t-shirt might weigh 350 lbs, but I know something about him. Luckily things have gotten a lot more interesting for people and the brands they love, with unlimited ways for a person to express themselves through a brand …

 Expression taps universal desires to be recognized, to make your voice heard, to create, even to boast. So when you give ‘em a blank canvas they’ll take it. Better still, if you give them a platform to showcase that canvas they create, they’ll give it their all. And tell all their friends. (See MINI, Lego, Scion.)

Talkable Work Strategy 4: Encourage Play

We just sent five of our key thinkers here at 22squared to grown-up spring break: the SXSW Interactive Conference.

They came back buzzing about gamification and the ‘game layer’ that will soon become a part of everyday life. “Checking in” on Foursquare is no longer a novelty, and savvy brands now harness the power of games and play to incite word of mouth. Which leads us to our 4th talkable work strategy, Encourage Play.

What is play, really? It’s part of our human nature–we’re inherently competitive, and when we engage in competition, however large or small, we want to win and we want to make sure people KNOW that we’ve won. And, as Charlie Sheen shows us, winning = talk.  That’s all well and good, you’re telling yourself, but what does that have to do with making my brand talk?

It’s pretty simple, actually: if you give your consumers a platform for competition, reward them for their efforts and make it easy for them to share their victory, they’ll want to spread the word.

Here are some of my favorite examples of brands that are harnessing play in effective, innovative ways:

Puma: As I said before, it’s human nature…people are competitive, and they want to win. So Puma introduced the life scoreboard as a way for people to win in ways they’d never been able to quantify before. They could keep score in all aspects of life: who’s the better cook? who’s worse, reality stars or socialites? What’s going to prevail, me or my hangover? They turned life into one big “quasi-serious” game, and gave consumers a sharable online platform to announce their victories.

Mini Getaway: Mini staged a week long virtual scavenger hunt through Stockholm, with a very real reward; a new car. Players searched for an augmented reality “Mini” via GPS, captured its location with a photo, and got out of there as fast as they could, before their opponents could “steal” it by taking a picture at the same location. The player with the Mini on their phone at the end of the week was the victor, and in the process, Mini got an entire city talking about their brand.

AT SXSW, Seth Priebatsch (Chief Ninja at SCVNGR) gave a fantastic talk on the implications of a game layer on society at large. If you ever have an extra hour (yeah right, I know), watch it here on the SXSW Interactive site.

Talkable work strategy 3: Market a BELIEF

The million-dollar question: How can we create advertising that makes people talk? Rather than wing it, we’ve come up with 8 strategic techniques. #3 is Market a Belief.

Consumers are more conscientious than ever, and people respond to brands that share their values. From sustainability, to community efforts, to crisis relief, to health issues, brands that plug in are winning. Here are some of my favorite examples:

Pedigree. They believe every dog deserves a great life. Every bag you buy helps dogs get adopted. Wait, doesn’t every dog food maker care about dogs? Maybe. But Pedigree owns it.

Pepsi Refresh Project. Funded by a Superbowl spot they didn’t run, Pepsi instead invited the little do-gooders of the world to pitch their ideas, vote, and get funded. This is too broad for most brands, but for the mass audience Pepsi has, this “every cause welcome” strategy works. People talk about their own ideas. They ask their friends for votes. And Pepsi is in the middle of every belief-based conversation.

Dove. In the shallow beauty industry, this campaign stands out. Dove believes that Real Beauty is worth more than what’s skin deep, and celebrates every woman. The natural extension is their teen self-esteem fund, building preference by people who share these more meaningful values.

Also on the Marketing+Good bandwagon: Haagen-Daaz saving the honey bees, Dawn dish soap cleaning oil off wildlife, and Method soap keeping chemicals out of your home. There are countless others.

How can your brand do it? Here are four tips for marketing a belief:

1. Align strategies/values. Don’t try to undo the harm your brand might be doing; rather, emphasize the good you do. For example, Budweiser’s hottest issue might be drunk driving, but throwing their whole brand behind it would create a conversation they can’t win. Another important cause? How about agriculture? Farm aid. Rather than apologize for the business you’re in, accentuate how you help.
2. Be authentic. Beliefs are so dear to people, a brand can risk backlash. It’s bigger than Greenwashing, it’s Goodwashing. We live in a transparent age. People will find out. They’ll smell greed-over-good, and the disingenuous brand will lose.
3. Be humble. Rabid customers will remind you that you could always do more. Agree with them. And who should get the credit? Your customers. Thank yous are too rare, and always work.
4. Do it together. Don’t just write a check. That’s philanthropy. Involve your customers in the cause. Create a machine that activates Doing Good with shopper participation. Declare a belief they believe in as well, and act together to make a difference.

The biggest win for a Belief brand may be improving the world, but hey; if people buy your brand for it, and talk to everyone they know about it, well, that’s a very happy byproduct. Do it right, and they won’t just believe in their cause, they’ll believe in your brand.

For more thoughts on When and How a brand should Market a Belief, check out our official Slideshare on all 8 strategies of talk-worthy work.

(See also, #1 Strategy for talk-worthy work, Make New Rules, and #2, Create Belonging. And stay tuned. – DY)