Studies indicate that 66% of consumers, regardless of age, will purchase from a brand they feel is sustainable and trustworthy. The numbers are even higher once the Millennial cohort is isolated; at 73%. When companies and brands tailor their advertising with trustworthy information for their target customer, conversion rates are boosted 30%.

Demographics Are Everything
Baby Boomers, the generation born between 1946 and 1960, were once considered the largest generation to ever live. This generation, for decades, has been the foremost influence driving business’s marketing efforts and product lines. But, all that’s about to change.

In the next few decades, the largest transfer of wealth, over 30 trillion dollars, will take place—from Boomers to the Millennial generation and their little brothers and sisters; Generation Z. Demographics are everything, and the aging of the Boomers and the rise of Millennials and Gen Z is going to severely change the marketing and business landscape.

Millennials and their younger counterparts look at companies, brands, and businesses through an entirely different lens than Baby Boomers, and brands are starting to feel the pinch of their critical gaze.

The Millennial generation is far more risk-averse than their Boomer elders. Millennials are more likely to value experiences over things, and will spend their money accordingly. They are not investing in real estate, and are far less likely to buy a car new and on loan, or even own a car at all. Furthermore, this generation is more skeptical of brands than their predecessors.

Trust Is Visceral
While trust has always been an important metric and component driving customer buying decisions, with Millennials, trust is now a key component, not a peripheral, nebulous concept. For them, trust is visceral, and necessary. Despite their young age, this generation and the one behind it are jaded toward the business and advertising worlds.

It’s hardly surprising. While Boomers came of age during the post-war boom, when housing prices, relative to income, were still affordable across socio-economic status, for Millennials this is not the case. Furthermore, this generation witnessed and experienced the massive fallout of the housing crisis of 2008. Since then, this generation’s trust in institutions and brands and businesses was severely crippled and eroded. To earn Millennials coveted trust in the business world, brands are required to operate in a trustworthy, and sustainable fashion. And, brands who are perceived as civically responsible will be more likely to obtain those depreciating Millennial dollars in the coming years.

So, how can a brand appear trustworthy to younger consumers?

• History: By sharing the company history or brand’s personal story, offering social proof
• Accountability, i.e.: ‘money-back guarantees’ or offering free trials
• Affiliations: Proving authority through affiliation with other trustworthy brands in the sphere
• Relatability: Approaching from a sympathetic angle by understanding the customer’s pain points. Telling stories in an informal, casual tone
• Subtlety: Offer value first without requiring anything in return

Businesses will have to compete in this new generational ethos. Boomers will not be the largest holders of disposable income soon, and in order to stay competitive in the new market, brands that build trust with their customers will reign supreme.

Marketing companies have been competing for the minds of millennials fiercely over the last few years – and for good reason.

Millennials represent about a quarter of the entire US population, and have over $200 billion in annual buying power. Though they have less discretionary income than Baby Boomers and older generations, they have a lot of influence – and are hard to reach with traditional marketing methods.

But are millennials still the hottest consumers out there? Or should we be focusing our efforts on a new generation of consumers? Here’s the scoop.

Millennials Are Still The Most Important Consumer Generation – For Now

Millennials are defined as individuals who were between 18-34 in 2015 by the Pew Research Center. They are just now entering the prime of their lives as consumers.

As millennials age, their income continues to grow as a generation. Most millennials are now out of college and working in professional careers, and millennials are the most educated generation to date.

This means that the buying power of millennials is only going to grow in future years, as they begin to start families and earn more discretionary income.

However, millennials will not stay at the top of the heap forever. As time goes on, Generation Z continues to grow – and a new generation of consumer is born.

Gen Z – The Largest Consumer Generation In History

Generation Z is defined as the “post-millennial” generation. While most definitions vary, it’s agreed that most Gen Z individuals were born around the year 2000 or later. This generation already makes up 25% of the population, and is forecasted to continue to grow.

As Gen Z becomes older, and younger people begin to enter the consumer market, they are likely to become the most highly sought-after consumer generation, just as millennials were before them.

Focus On Millennials In Marketing Efforts – But Don’t Forget About Gen Z!

How should brands market their products? Luckily, millennials and Gen Z both share a few common attributes. Consumers from both generations are tech-savvy and have quite a bit of influence on the market – and both Gen Z and millennial consumers do not respond well to traditional advertising methods.

While millennials should be the focus on most marketing efforts, Gen Z should not be overlooked. Brands should be using social media platforms like Snapchat, Instagram and Twitter to reach a younger audience, and should always be on the lookout for hot trends that could appeal to Gen Z consumers.

Conclusion

As time goes on, millennials will become less important as a consumer audience, and the importance of Gen Z will grow. So focus on millennials for now, but don’t forget about the younger generation.

BUT… when it comes down to the heart of what you want the agency to deliver for you creatively, it’s best to keep it short and sweet. The immersion is the key area where we intend to learn anything and everything about your brand, business, category and consumer. This is where the data-dump should take place.

Whereas the actual initiative we are working on should be able to be interpreted in one-page or less. References to examples that you’d consider benchmarks are always a plus.

If you do this and hear crickets, then the agency just doesn’t get it and maybe the long-form is necessary. However, more times than not, the agency will appreciate the synthesis of your objectives, and be able to move ahead much more efficiently with the task at hand.

So the next time you’re getting ready to pull the trigger on that brief, try and remember this tip. It will save you time on both ends.

Thanks for reading, and let us know if this was helpful, or if you need help crafting that brief.

The battle for attention in the advertising world is intense. Companies are finding it increasingly difficult to differentiate themselves from the competition. What is a company to do when the good ideas are either: taken, over-used, or cliché. How do they breakthrough, without breaking?

The growing trend to enter the consumer’s mind is to use controversy to excite, whether it means using humor or anger to grab attention. Controversial campaigns are high risk, high reward, so caution should be used when employing such tactics.

The recent viral advertisement campaign by Kmart, dubbed the #shipmypants ad, uses word play to promote Kmart’s shipping service. The responses have been between calling this ad, a smart, hilarious campaign, to sophomoric and cheap. Regardless, the numbers don’t lie, people are talking. Whether it’s good or bad, is still up for discussion.

Do you believe that any press is good press?

If you intend to use controversy to jumpstart a campaign here are some questions for you to answer. Since controversy evokes strong emotions:

1.Are you being controversial just to be controversial, or does it have a specific link to your brands purpose?
2.Does the dialog relate to your brand message and positioning, or is just a quick hit to highlight something new?
3. Have you prepared for the backlash and unexpected consequences?

When controversial marketing campaigns work, they usually have a high initial response rate but die off as quickly as they rise. So to sum this all up, are controversial ads worth it? In the short run, maybe, in the long run, no, unless you have a plan to continue the conversation. And if you’re going to go this route, do it sparingly as you cannot reliably gauge the response.

At the end of the day, if you are having trouble breaking through the white noise, what will you do? Play it safe or go for it?

The colorful depiction of the 2012 Summer Olympics logo depicted above was infamously met with confusion and controversy and for most, will go down as a major branding mistake.

What was supposed to look like a stylized version of the numbers 2012 turned into a media circus from how people “didn’t get it” to flat out laughter and even a petition of over 48,000 citizens to get rid of the design.

What was the big deal?

Despite the internal support for the design, the masses agreed with Jonathan Glancey of the Guardian art blog, who wrote “The logo fails the Olympics spirit completely. Its component parts are broken apart, while the Olympics are all about athletes, spectators and nations joining together.”

Whether you are a fan of the logo or not, it’s not what we think of our brand that matters but what others believe our brand to be that matters.

Because of all the brand damage and bad press, the Olympic committee started to require Olympic logo designs to follow stricter brand guidelines.

The result has been a more cohesive visual language as illustrated by Rio2016, PyeongChang2018, and Tokyo 2020.

Design is a matter of taste but Branding is a matter of public opinion. What’s your take on this? Leave a comment below.

As consumers, we are programmed to intuitively select the products and brands we need based on what looks familiar (e.g., the easiest decision to make). And as marketers, “the goal is to make consumers repeat their purchases by matching the value proposition to their needs.” Consumers don’t want to spend the mental energy when shopping (online or in-store for that matter), so why make them?

The solution for brands lies within understanding the habits of their consumers, and evolving or improving upon them based on what their brains are programmed to be looking for. And unless consumers are absolutely screaming for a change, and the return is solid for your business, then making a dramatic change is no bueno.

Brands like Coke, Tropicana, GAP, and many more have undergone redesigns in some capacity over the years. Consumers didn’t demand it. They weren’t educated on the change, nor provided a real rationale. The result was backlash, and even a decline in sales, which pushed the brands to quickly go back to the original. A lot of time and money lost. However, sometimes it pays off (only if the demand is there), but often times it doesn’t.

There are more examples and insights we could share, but we simply don’t have the time, nor blog post space to do so. That said, we want to leave you with this very simple message: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. And if you decide to fix it, make sure you do it in a way that doesn’t disrupt the habits of your consumers.

While reminiscing about your childhood I’m sure you have fond memories of digging through the biggest Crayola box to find that perfect color. Now, as an adult, you may not be digging through that same crayon box, but if you’re a designer we’re sure you wish you could.

Scribble is the pen that changes how we interact with color. All you do is hold the back of the pen up to a surface and the pen will scan and reproduce the color within seconds. Most graphic designers would love this capability to be digital in order to replicate the color onto their computer rather than paper. No problem, there is a scribble stylus that functions the same way to easily translate the colors from the world around you, digitally. This pen makes designing and recreating colors easy. The scribble also has an associated app where you can find colors you previously scanned to use again, or share with others.

The Scribble recently started funding on Kickstarter, so if you’re ready to bring some more color into your life, go ahead and contribute.

What Sparks our Fire: A great design tool that is fun and easy to use.

What’s your favorite color?

A few weeks ago we wrote about The Coolest, a cooler that does just about everything you’d imagine a cooler could do. Well, we were wrong. The IcyBreeze cooler doesn’t have all of the features of The Coolest, but it does have one that sets it apart.

This cooler doesn’t just keep your drinks cold, it also cools you with a built in air conditioner. Now when you’re enjoying your summer weekend on the beach you can easily cool off without having to get wet. Simply fill the cooler with two quarts of water, ice, and beverages and the rechargeable battery will keep you cool for up to seven hours.

This summer the cooler really seems to be the center of everyone’s attention. The Coolest is now the third most funded Kickstarter project ever hauling in over $7.5 million dollars as I write this with 31 days left. The IcyBreeze isn’t fundraising and is the basic cooler ($279) is available for pre-order.

What Sparks our Fire: Even more innovation in an area that has lacked for decades.

Which do you prefer – The Coolest or The IcyBreeze?

Getting a parking ticket can easily ruin a day. They are frustrating to receive – especially when wrongly accused. The price of a parking ticket is just marginal enough that for many people it isn’t worth the time to fight it, causing them to simply pay the fine.

Fixed is here is help you out. The app, currently only available in San Francisco, coming soon to Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York, will fight your parking ticket for you. All you need to do is upload a picture of the ticket into the app and a representative will file the complaint and handle the rest. Fixed will only charge you if they win the case (According to VentureBeat they’ve won 20-30 percent of their cases so far). So if you lose you pay the ticket, but if you win you pay just 25% of what the fine would’ve cost you, to Fixed – a bargain considering it’s a 75% savings with no time spent.

The company has just completed $1.2 million dollar round of funding which will help them expand to more cities across the country. Keep Fixed in mind next time you get a parking ticket and don’t have the time to fight it.

What Sparks our Fire: An app that helps save both time and money.

Have you ever gotten an undeserving ticket you just paid instead of fighting?

Wearables are popping up left and right as accessory devices to help interact with your phone better than you could before. But, not everyone wants to wear a smartwatch on their wrist in order to be further connected to their phone. Qblink is a remote control for your phone and raising money on Kickstarter now.

Misplace your phone? You can set off a ringing noise by pressing the device. By connecting to your phone over bluetooth it can also notify you of emails, text messages, and other alerts you receive to your phone by just blinking on this separate device. Through the Qblink app you can easily customize what each color light notification means. Additionally, it tells local temperature and the battery lasts up to a year.

What Sparks our Fire: Even better and simpler ways to interact with our smartphones

Would you use a remote for your phone?