Inc.com chronicles one Gen Y marketing campaign by BMW that I have not heard of. The opening sentence forewarned me:
Generation Y’s indifference to traditional forms of marketing and advertising has some big companies and their ad agencies scrambling for creative ways to reach and engage this demographic.
Engagement is the key these days, isn’t it? If you read the marketing campaign in the short article, you won’t read about magazine ads, TV commercials or radio spots. Instead there are short films on YouTube, Facebook pages and micro-websites.
I think the author best sums up this new marketing approach (my bold):
It seems to me that the campaign is less about the actual product than it is about delivering a specific message to a target market: we understand what gets your attention, so we’re going to plant our brand where you live, give you fun stuff to look at and play around with online, and we’re going to facilitate an ongoing conversation that will engage you far longer and more intimately than a 30-second television commercial.