Ypulse Youth Marketing Mashup East: What Every Brand Could Learn From The Obama Campaign's Marketing To College Students
Posted by meredith on 11-10-2008
SurveyU co-founder Dan Coates kicked things off last week with a research presentation on how and why Obama's effort to galvanize college students was such a phenomenal success [SurveyU was our research sponsor]. Breaking down the campus crowd by the numbers, Coates gave some great insight for understanding the demographic both as a population and as a growing powerhouse. A force to be reckoned with? That might be an understatement …
The Basics
- "Zigging where X zagged" Y defines themselves by correcting the recklessness of their predecessors
(i.e. reinforcing community, bonding with parents/grandparents, making positive change)
- A pampered and protected Generation Y-ers will stay under the shadow of their helicopter parents until they are good and ready to come out (On average, female college students call home every day of the week., while guys limit themselves to five times.)
- Gen Y is multi-cultural, multi-tasking and multi-lingual
- First generation to be more technologically advanced than their parents
By the Numbers
- Gen Y is almost 100 million strong
- This year was the largest starting freshman year in the history of US academia
- College students in America outnumber every state's population with the exception of CA, TX, NYC (Dan poignantly asks, "What candidate could afford to ignore a state of that size?")
Campus Politics
- Students' political leanings came as no surprise (60% self-identify as Democrats, over 50% view themselves as liberal)
- But the numbers of those who not only registered to vote (91%), but actually followed through (around 86%) definitely made some ears perk up
- Even more inspiring were the stats behind students making an effort to stay both aware (70% follow political news very closely to somewhat closely, with nearly 60% saying they watched the first presidential debate) as well as active (53%)
- Dan suggested that while students turned to mass media to keep them informed the MOST influential institution in terms of political engagement was the family (70%), with parents (67%) weighing in as the most influential individuals
- Facebook's role in it all? The primary means for "grassroots engagement," Dan deems the social networking site "the new yard sign," listing various ways students used the site to promote their candidate (i.e. changing status, joining a group, adding a Facebook app, changing their profile pic, becoming a supporter/fan, RSVPing to an event
The Takeaway?
The future of this country is in the hands of millions of millennials. They are well-informed, well-connected and, yes, well-intentioned. So, reach out to them in a thoughtful, honest way, and it will be paid back in dividends.
P.S. The map in this post was produced by Future Majority and is one in a series of charts illustrating the impact and partisan loyalties of the youth vote.
Categorized under: 2008 Mashup East, Collegians
November 10th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
This map was produced by Future Majority and is one in a series of charts illustrating the impact and partisan loyalties of the youth vote.
November 10th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
Excellent post. I'm glad someone was able to graph that for us. Clearly GenY cant be ingnored anymore as we are outnumbering baby-boomers. Obama understood that, and I'm very glad he succeeded in getting the message across to them. One cannot underestimate the strength of Word of Mouth on campuses since most college students live in communities and interact with others on a daily basis.
For many, talking about politics is like talking about the weather, when you need a topic of conversation.
November 11th, 2008 at 9:02 am
My 14 y.o. daughter and her friends are quite well-rounded. They discuss politics and all manner of current events as easily as they talk about pop culture.
The nearly blued out map confirmed what my daughter's tiny, very non-statistical sample group of friends exhibits: a post 9/11, post VA Tech shooting, midst economic strife openness to something new. Many of these teens have seen a lot of negative in their short lives, it's not surprising that any promise of change would resonate strongly.
January 19th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
I'm 27 and I suppose that means I'm on the line between the Y Generation and the X Generation, but it's true that I am absolutely immune to traditional advertising. I fast forward through commercials, don't listen to radio, rarely read magazines and ignore ads when I do, and don't think I've ever clicked on an online banner ad. The Obama Campaign tapped into the Millennial/Y Generation, though, and in turn they def helped push him over the edge. If you’re marketing to that age range then there are ABSOLUTELY some lessons to be learned from his campaign…
http://www.thedailyanchor.com/2009/01/19/marketing-to-millennials-a-lesson-learned-from-barack-obama/