CurryStew

Thinking about some down time I have coming up in a couple of weeks for Spring Break and I’ve been thinking about how I’m going to use that time to recharge.  I’m pretty easy to please when it comes to vacation.

My idea of a dream vacation:

1. Brooke, Jada, and Gino
2. Quiet lake house
3. Boat for fishing
4. a frig and pantry full of food for home cooking
5. lots of lemonade
6. sunshine

Since today is DC Talk Day on my blog (not intentional but it’s turning into that) I figured I’d confess something.

Confession #1: Before coming on staff at Granger in 2006 I didn’t know Toby Mac was in DC Talk

There is a FUNNY story about how I found out not only was he IN DC Talk but that he was the lead.

Confession #2: All I knew about DC Talk growing up was that they had a black guy in their group.

I grew up on Gospel music not…well DC Talk-like music.

To all the old school Jesus Freaks out there: I ask for your grace in helping me through with these confessions.

Here’s a goofy little video we made for GSM High School instead of doing song special for it.  We didn’t change any of the lyrics so it’s not a true parody…but it totally is a parody by definition, but not.  We played this right before the message.

This is “I don’t want it” by DC Talk from like 1935…I mean  1992…I was 11.

“I Don’t Want It” from Jeffrey Myers on Vimeo.

Sitting in my hotel room at Kalahari Resort (I’m speaking at a retreat this weekend) and found this in one of my Evernote folders from last September and thought it was worth posting.  Have no idea where I clipped it from off the internet but I think this is good stuff to know, especially considering it’s about time to rediscover some of our foundational roots in the life of the Church (Big C.) which SHOULD affect the way we do student ministry.

If we just keep doing the same things, we’ll keep getting the same results…and it seems odd to keep doing the same things when student culture changes more and more every year.

In our area around Granger, there are LOTS of students who don’t go to a church at all and don’t really want to set foot in a church (neither do their parents, which makes it even more of a challenge)…but it’s ok because they’re good people (sarcasm).  SO, I’ve been wrestling with for about 6 months now, how do we take GSM TO them!  (I’ll say more about this later sometime)

Here’s the post I found helpful as I process how to pioneer this movement.:

Engaging Millennials = Enabling Discovery + Energizing Experience + Encouraging Advocacy

Of course, this formula presumes you have a relevant product and positioning. If not, you have more problems than simply breaking through. But assuming for a moment you have cleared the Product, Placement and Pricing hurdles, how should you go about Promoting your brand to Millennials? Let’s unpack this formula a bit:

Enabling Discovery

No one wants to be told what to do, what to like and what to think. That is especially true of Millennials, who have an instant aversion to anything that smacks of ‘marketing’. They want to believe that they have uniquely discovered the things they like. That’s not to say that mass brands are not appealing, as Obama can tell you. But mass brands don’t start with any advantage. The ideal way for a Millennial to first experience a product or service is to discover it for themselves. Think of ‘Stumbleupon’ as the model.

This feeling of ‘discovery’ underlies the success of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog and Tom’s Shoes. Discovery is social currency, you can spend it with friends (or wider) and increase your personal brand. Discovery is the dynamic that drives marketing for restaurants, music, wine and microbrews. (For more on the social dynamic behind wine’s growing popularity, see my earlier post, “A Perfect Pairing”).

Achieving a sense of ‘discovery’ is no accident. It means creating events where Millennials can meet the brand, as Red Bull has done so successfully. Or creating a smash viral video. Social media, social media, product placement, and sampling are all good ‘discovery’ media.

Energizing the Experience

This is literally having a brand experience worth writing home about, one that not only meets the minimums for efficiency, personalization and value, but that goes over and above expectations. Success with Millennials requires being distinctive; they love ’shiny’ things.

Marketers at Apple, Nike, Zappos, Jamba Juice, Red Bull, Zipcar, Vogue magazine and other beloved, ‘iconic’ Millennial brands understand that to be remarked upon, you must literally beremarkable for something inherent in the user or customer experience. This can be accomplished through customization, design, ease of access, or price (free works especially well). However it is accomplished, it must be both authentic and fresh to overcome the impressive filters Millennials have perfected. The experience must be fun, compelling or unique or you will never get to the third and final step of the formula: advocacy.

Encouraging Advocacy

If this was a real formula, ‘advocacy’ is the variable that would have an exponent after it. Advocacy is the thing that makes Millennial marketing unique today, and is likely to be the biggest change to mainstream marketing in the future.

Yesterday I had a wonderful conversation with Sarah Newton, a radio celebrity, Twitter friend, and author of the blog,GenYGuide.com. Sarah lives in Northampton, England. Despite the being oceans apart, we agreed on many things, above all that Gen Y is unique. We also speculated the thing that makes them unique, perhaps in all history, is access to platforms to broadly communicate and share their ideas. This ability alone may make the gap between Gen Y and earlier generations more striking than any previous gap, or possibly any to come (profound thought isn’t it?). A new global study of 9000 -27 year olds by YouGovStone reached a similar conclusion: ”The digital revolution has not only given this generation of young people access to knowledge and information on an unprecedented scale, but it has also given them massive influence.”

Mobilizing that influence requires making it easy to access and share information with peers. Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, topic-specific blogs, and opinion sites like Yelp are all ways to encourage Millennials to talk to each other about your brand. Of course, talking about brands is not something Millennials are inclined to do without good reason. That’s why so many brands have found success by associating with worthy causes, or highlighting their support of environmental or humanitarian initiatives. Advocacy efforts take many forms, both long term and short term promotions (Starbucks Project Red, Taco Bell Feed the Beat). For more immediate sharing, brands are experimenting with mobile applications and widgets, like DryncWine.com. However it’s done, advocacy via social media is now a critical part of any youth marketing effort.

My final words of advice on reaching Millennials is much simpler:take time to get to know them. If you are over 30, the worst mistake you can make is thinking they think like you do. Listen to Millennials, at home and in the office. They will give you the best advice about how to reach others like them.

I wish this was in Granger.  My friend John White sent this to me and cracked me up…