Implications: Beyond the important message housed in this story, I left the article wondering about the effectiveness of today’s producer/consumer communication. As I was growing up in the 60’s & 70’s, there was a lot of attention paid to the “Generation Gap.” The issue has enjoyed a renaissance in recent years, as people have compared the characteristics of The Matures, Baby Boomers, Gen X, Gen Y, and Millennials. But in many ways, I think the chasms which might exist between these cohorts are less “generation gap,” and more “technology gap” and “communication gap.” R U w/me so far? Gr8.
There is a growing number of people out there who have learned to read or listen in ways that are entirely incompatible with the way many of us originally learned to write or speak. Perhaps one of the more important consumer trends of our time will force us to ask these questions:
- Does your consumer communication speak to both sides of this digital divide?
- Does communicating by text or Twitter require that you abbreviate your story… or does it simply force you to isolate the most critical part of your value proposition? (Sometimes, there is a very fine line between dumbing-things-down… and wising-things-up.)
- Have you mastered the art of incremental conversation (providing the short-form messages some consumers might prefer, but also giving them an avenue to find “more information” abundantly)?
- By “digitizing” your message to appeal to techno-savvy consumers, do you risk alienating your more analog shoppers? (Or, is the converse a greater risk?)
Thankfully, it’s not my job to have all the right answers. Just the right questions.
Mike Anderson
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