In the last couple of years, I've become a quintessential "new media" consumer. I live in Manhattan so I don't listen to drive-time radio, but rather stream it 8-10 hours a day from Pandora or Spotify while at the office. I live and work in areas that have minimal billboards plastered all over. I cancelled my cable about a year and a half ago and started streaming it digitally to my flatscreen via Hulu and Netflix. The internet is my baby, and as a self-proclaimed social media junkie, I spend 95% of my time online on Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, YouTube, Posterous, Tumblr and Flickr, and the other 5% online "shopping" (or browsing) on Amazon, Urban Outfitters, and a few other favorite sites. I go months at a time before a physical newspaper crosses my path; my access to news and the world has now been replaced by Twitter by following everything from the New York Times, Wired, ESPN and Ad Age, to Perez Hilton, Kim Kardashian, and Chad Ochocinco. I have an iPhone, so now all of the above is right at my fingertips, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (or when AT&T decides to work).
If there is something that I am, is connected.
As ad kid, I am overly hungry to see the creative work my colleagues are putting out into the world. I thirst for amazing creative work. So why is it that while I have my eyes open, I rarely feel that brands are targeting, or let alone reaching me?
I came across this revelation as I was reading Rick Mathieson's The On-Demand Brand. In the book, Mathieson talks to the movers, shakers and thought-leaders of the ad biz and basically hangs on their every word as they share their ground-breaking campaigns--from Crispin's Subservient Chicken, to Evolution, Unilever's epic viral ad. But who doesn't know these right? But as I delved deeper into the book, Mathieson started pointing out more obscure examples for brands that I actually identify with and consume--like HBO, Lost, and Diet Coke to name a few. So why is it that I was never exposed to their campaigns first hand and is it months, even years later, that I come to read about them in the pages of a marketing book? And these are just the brands that should be targeting me--never mind the other case studies that are presented about efforts of brands that I know little to nothing about.
Even brands that I've worked on have not successfully reached me. After working on the U.S. Census campaign for the Hispanic market, I can sadly say that I maybe saw one, or two of our pieces in market, and the same goes for the General Market work. And this was a $133 million dollar campaign that was bombarded almost every media outlet in the nation and who's target was, get this, EVERYONE living in the U.S.
The more I think about it, maybe its not so much that brands aren't targeting me---perhaps its the fact that I am just hyperactively connected? With so much news and content being thrown around, plus the fact that I live in a city that doesn't sleep--perhaps I am just overly consumed with the things that really matter to me? Or perhaps I have become immune to brand's targeted efforts?
These are the kinds of thoughts that cross my mind on a daily basis.
If you're interested in learning more about me, feel free to reach out.
rodriguezjmr@gmail.com
908-403-3778
@justjessnyc
Jessica [:
