Memo to CES: There's More to Tech Marketing than Millennials

Surprise One commercial about a dog owner uses a song quotWand39rin39 Starquot from the musical quotPaint Your Wagonquot which debuted on Broadway in 1951 A second spot about a horse owner uses a song quotLittle Manquot made popular by Sonny and Cher back in 1966Come to think of it there39s another surprising aspect of the ad blitz The commercials are running in heavy rotation on a traditional medium television rather than in newer trendier media that presumably would be more appropriate places to pitch a product like Amazon PrimeAs CES 2016 gets underway this week in Las Vegas it39s interesting even illuminating to consider what Amazon is up to with its Amazon Prime campaign To be sure it39s almost impossible to overstate the importance of younger consumers to technology marketers That39s because the Millennials and the generation following them are and will be crucial to sellers of smartphones and other mobile devices apps connected devices streaming services and any offerings under the rubric of the IoT Internet of ThingsYet the Amazon Prime ads serve as a reminder that there39s still gold to be mined among older consumers the ones who watch television and are familiar with Sonny Cher and quotPaint Your Wagonquot Indeed Amazon is not alone in targeting older demographics along with Millennials and Generation ZFor instance the latest Android phones from Google were advertised last month with a television commercial featuring the 1963 song quotA Marshmallow Worldquot by Darlene Love The tune also serves as a wink to the techsavvy in that the phones are equipped with the newest version of Android known as Android 60 Marshmallow And Verizon is introducing Hum a connected car device with a television commercial that uses an instrumental version of the 1964 Chuck Berry tune quotNo Particular Place to GoquotquotYou may get more buzz from the younger people especially for your newer products but at the same time you may be getting an outsized chunk of your revenue from the older consumers who have more money to spendquot says Mark Dolliver an analyst specializing in demographic data at eMarketerThough older consumers may have quotlagged behind in mobilequot he adds it39s inadvisable to write them off techadverse because those belonging to the baby boomer cohort born from 1946 to 1964 are the ones who quotput the personal computer on the map in the early daysquotquotThey39re certainly using desktops and laptopsquot he adds and while quota fairly small number of online boomers are on Twitter half are on FacebookquotquotBaked into the boomerquot ethos is the idea quotthat we39re forever youngquot Dolliver says which provides quotan impetus to buy these new technologiesquot By the end of the decade about two thirds of boomers will have smartphones he estimates a not insignificant amount even if the devices won39t be as pervasive as they will be among younger consumers at 90Because older consumers are avid watchers of traditional television it makes sense to run TV commercials to reach them Dolliver says adding quotThere39s a tendency to underestimate the amount of television younger people are watching It39s still a huge chunk of their timequotAnother reason to use TV to reach potential customers regardless of their ages is that quota company like Amazon wants to be a cultural phenomenon and not just a consumer product companyquot Dolliver says and to do that you quotwant to be on TVquotAccording to data from iSpottv which provides television ad spending metrics Amazon increased its TV spending for Amazon Prime from 14 million in the first nine months of 2014 to 73 million in the first nine months of 2015The iSpottv data shows that Amazon is not the only hightech marketer that spent substantially more money in the allegedly lowtech medium of television From the first three quarters of 2014 to the first three quarters of 2015 Apple spending went from 97 million to 1913 million Google went from 188 million to 506 million and Microsoft went from 211 million to 108 millionIn some instances iSpottv reports tech firms jumped into TV recently enough to make yearoveryear comparisons moot For example Airbnb and Fitbit both began buying television time in November 2014 according to iSpottv in the first nine months of 2015 the former spent 184 million and the latter spent 242 millionThere39ll be more quarterly data to scrutinize soon as two big tech brands Twitter and Uber joined the ranks of TV advertisers in OctoberCan the trend keep going and growing Maybe by encouraging the children of older consumers to visit them more oftenquotOne reason boomers are slow to adopt and figure out mobile technology is that boomer householders are largely emptynester householdsquot Dolliver says meaning that quotthe inhouse tech supportquot their offspring formerly provided is less availableImage at top courtesy of Corbis The opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillageMyersBizNet Inc management or associated bloggers

Click to Make Your 2025 Contribution to Support the MediaVillage Education Foundation

Memo to CES: There's More to Tech Marketing than Millennials

Author

Publish date

Channel

Stuart Elliott

"About That with Carl Mayer:" Alaina Donnellon (Episode 6) - By Carl Mayer

More Videos:

Click to Make Your 2025 Contribution to Support the MediaVillage Education Foundation

Memo to CES: There's More to Tech Marketing than Millennials

Enjoying This Commentary? There's More to Love

Stuart Elliott

"About That with Carl Mayer:" Alaina Donnellon (Episode 6) - By Carl Mayer

The payment was successful

Cookies