Elisabeth Leonard on Libraries

Marketing for generations

.I've paid a lot of attention to marketing to various generations, especially Gen X, who I think are mostly forgotten.  In Ad Age this week, there's an article on marketing to the millennials.  While Gen X wants to be treated as individuals (niche marketing works better than mass marketing), the millennials apparently respond well to mass marketing, especially if they can customize the experience (enter social media).    That all sounds good, right?  Here's the problem for marketers, as seen through the example of Obama's campaign:
Gen Xers and boomers may have assumed that today's youth are as anti-marketing as they once were; millennials' mass adoption of Mr. Obama's brand may puzzle or alienate them. From AdAge.

Tailoring a message for any one group can lead to alienation of another group!  It means that the message must be part of what you stand for, not a new message.  It can't leave your audience puzzled or, even worse, -- angry.  How your audience responds is the point, right?

A word to the wise

I read adAge weekly.  Many weeks, there is nothing that captures my attention, but this morning, I read the following paragraph:
The Pitfalls of Megabranding - Advertising Age - Al Ries

A declining category means that consumers are leaving the market. Some consumers who used to drink cola are now drinking water and other beverages. How can "more choice" bring them back to cola? What Coca-Cola needs to do is to promote "cola," not choice.

Leaving the declining category aside (as I am not convinced that libraries are a declining category, although ready reference may be), wee need to answer what type of message are we sending and what should it be?  As much as librarians worry about patrons using the internet and bookstores, we have been torn between alienating our patrons by sending a message that is anti-internet and anti-bookstore (you won't find what you need there, come to us) or sending a message that ignores the competition (we're useful -- with an implied still at the end of we're useful...still).

Ries goes on to discuss how the brand becomes meaningless when it becomes a megabrand, with line extensions that take the brand into products that don't represent the original brand, muddying the original message.  He also quotes Steve Jobs, who said: "Everything just got simpler. That's been one of my mantras -- focus and simplicity." 

This all reminds me of the newest OCLC report, From Awareness to Funding, that states that the library is a superbrand.  People know what the library is and what it stands for.  We don't need campaigns that promote books; books are circulating just fine.  We do need campaigns that promote the transformational impact of libraries, that highlight the results of having a library, results that we have that our competitors do not.  You don't hear Google talking about literacy.  Borders doesn't champion intellectual enlightenment.  When was the last time you saw a library campaign that talked about: all libraries are forums for information and ideas?