Rant ahead:
I’m sick of marketing plans that are geared toward the “mindset of 17- and 18-year-old students”. Honestly… how do we know the mindset of every teenager in that age bracket? We don’t! Because they’re all unique individuals.
And we’re a bunch of 30’s – 50’s age bracket people making these assumptions… because we know just how youngsters in this day and age think?
No…. they’re ASSUMPTIONS.
And there’s some saying about what happens when you assume and it indicates that somebody in the equation is an ass… And that’s what I start to feel like when I’m in meetings where people keep saying these things over and over and over.
- “Kids now want flashy things.”
- “They need movement!”
- “They need bells and whistles!”
Bells and whistles? Man… that just screams that we’re too old to be making these assumptions.
But you know what I assume they want? Straightforward information that is easy to use on a range of devices, whether they’re on a desktop, laptop, tablet or phone. But I get looked at like I have grown a second head when I suggest something of that nature.
I can’t imagine lumping myself into a group like that. “We gotta get into the mindset of the mid-to-late-30’s people.” I can’t even come to a consensus with the other person in that age-bracket who lives in my house (my husband) on what is the best way to speak to us through advertisements, web pages, television (except The Walking Dead… that is awesome no matter what), music… any form of media. Some things we see eye-to-eye on and others we don’t. That’s the nature of human beings… we can think for ourselves and form our own opinions.
So making a decision based on what you guess a whole group of people would want, especially when you’re doing it from a perspective that they must all be morons and not even giving them the benefit of the assumption that they have a brain… well, that’s just driving me bonkers lately.
That’s why we need focus groups. Let’s just ask a small sampling of people in that age group. It’s still assumptions, but assumptions made with a little more knowledge.
Okay, end highly unpolished rant.
GlossyVeneer 