It is a truism of sorts that politics is about marketing. There are clear parallels between the skill sets required of a successful politician and the skill sets for an upcoming marketing man. So, I write this blog entry with the dual context in mind. Perhaps, with a little more emphasis on Malaysian politics.
There is certainly enough evidence that Malaysia is in transition in many ways. Not just politically. A key transition phenomenon which was underestimated by BN in Malaysia (and Hillary Clinton and, the Republicans in the U.S.), is the medium of cyberspace in relation to their political platform. I suspect that in the commercial world, particularly in retail marketing, there are many dinosaurs waiting unwittingly for extinction in overlooking this phenomenon that I want to discuss - the millenials.
Who are the millenials?
Businessweek describes them as, those elusive 12- to 26-year-olds raised among text messages and Twitter. In the U.S. millenials are said to be the perfect customers who travel in packs and, eat like fiends and, who have tons of disposable income.
There are, apparently, some 80 million millennials (and their parents) who spend roughly USD200 billion annually. Yet they're tough to reach through traditional marketing such as billboards, flyers, radio spots, and newspaper ads. Based on their behaviourial patterns, political parties and businesses will struggle to attract teens and 20-somethings.
Being raised on mobile phones, e-mail, and round-the-clock Internet, millennials are just as media-savvy as the marketers who target them. Occasionally, they'll start going for viral marketing campaigns. But more often they'll just ignore messages that don't seem relevant. This makes the Obama presidential campaign a likely classic case study for marketers in the coming years. Obama's campaign managers worked hard to reach out via the cyberspace to millenials in the form of Facebook and Youtube. Not only did Obama's message get across, the added bonus was that the campaign rode on a phenomenon that I recently highlighted, "crowdfunding", which has raised many millions of dollars of campaign contributions to Obama.
A rich reservoir of political support
In Malaysia, the millenials have proven to be a rich reservoir of support that Pakatan Rakyat has reached very succssfully. Newly-minted MP, Jeff Ooi may have been quoted as saying that in the campaign trail, hardly anyone he shook hands with knew him as a blogger. But it was crowdfunding that got him in excess of RM100,000 in campaign contributions in the run-up to the March 8 General Elections.
The avuncular Lim Kit Siang has a substantial coterie of millenials following his blog. Likewise with Anwar Ibrahim.
This places Barisan Nasional component parties at a serious disadvantage. BN obviously underestimated the millenials. It's challenge is to cobble together a clear and consistent message that is acceptable and credible to millenials. Remember, millenials will just ignore messages that don't seem relevant. The same applies to would-be advertisers and marketers.
Crafty millenials
One interesting aspect is that millennials are said to be willing to "share themselves" with the world—and, more important, advertisers. But, be warned, they're not easily exploited. Nor are they gullible to superficial messages that doesn't resonate with them. If the message medium is too intrusive then millenials are likely to shut them out. This is not a forgiving demographic.
Strategies required to attract millenials
To state the obvious, the doddering strategists at BN are obviously being outplayed and out-thought by Pakatan cyberforces...for now. One clue that may be of interest to BN and, marketers, is that millenials clearly prefer edgy messages. Being well-informed, they enjoy exploring contrarian views.
This doesn't necessarily mean that they subscribe to and, support such contrarian views. It is just intellectual curiosity. But, be warned that if the message construct is too superficial, boring, uncolourful and, basically a yawn, then, even a codger like me will tune out, never mind the millenials!
This blog entry was inspired by an article in Businessweek.
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