ProjectNewAge.com Blog

NEW ONLINE AD NETWORK CONNECTS TO HARD-TO-REACH YOUTH DEMO

Last week Josh Jones at YES CU blog raised the question of CUs using Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaigns to attract new CU members. As we commented back on the Yes CU blog, at PSCU Financial Services (and our ProjectNewAge initiative) we’re encouraged by recent advancements in targeted paid search marketing in social networks and other relevant online media.

That’s why we were excited to hear that GoFish has launched its youth-oriented, online advertising network targeting 17.4 million young U.S. Web users. GoFish focuses on Web media reaching 6-to-17 year olds (remember, Gen Y begins at age 13 or so).

GoFish, and other similar ad networks, can help CUs (as a whole) leverage the very large aggregate audience of youth-oriented virtual worlds. This is important because the number of new Web sites in Kids Entertainment and Teen Community categories grew nearly 50 percent from Q4 2006 to 2007. And by effectively utilizing selected online ad networks, CUs may also reach co-viewing parents who share the web experience with their Gen Y’ers.

ProjectNewAge will continue monitoring GoFish and other online ad networks to help CUs reach the all-elusive Gen Y. Has your CU used PPC yet? Tell us!

WIDGETS OFFER GEN Y MARKETING OPPORTUNITY FOR CUs

Remember when “Widgets” were imaginary products referenced by our old college economics professors? Not today! So what’s a Widget? Well, just ask any Gen Y’er ... a Widget is a simplified web interface application. Huh? Okay, in plain speak ... Widgets are live windows that Web users can implement onto their own Web site, desktop or social networking profile. Or, think of them as little windows into a selected portion of an external Web site’s content. They’re also known as gadgets.

And unlike RSS feeds, Widget use can be easily tracked and measured. That’s why many companies such as USA Today have jumped on the Widget Wagon. USA Today offers “News Widgets” that can be tagged on to a Web user’s personal page or a social network profile.

Here at ProjectNewAge.com we’ve seen some pretty cool MySpace Widgets lately, allowing Gen Y’ers to “trick out” their profiles. So we thought that it would be a good idea to show you four cool, new Widgets we found.

Cool-looking clocks can be embedded in a Gen Y’ers social network profile layout at ClockLink.  Check it out!

Now Gen Y’ers don’t have to listen to the same song over and over and over when visiting their friends' MySpace profiles, thanks to a streaming radio Widget from KEXP. By adding this Widget to their profile, Gen Y’ers’ friends almost never hear the same song twice.  Check it out!

By far the single most important part of any Gen Y’ers MySpace profile is their avatar. Using a new Web site called Meez, Gen Y’ers can create 3D rendered avatars of themselves, complete with customized hair, clothing, eye color, background, facial features, etc. Check it out!

 

A new Widget called ZingFu is the digital version of those “olden days” when we’d go to the carnival and they had those goofy background scenes with holes cut out for sticking our faces through—then having our picture taken. ZingFu is a cool Widget for Gen Y’ers to make fun of their friends by posting nutty pics of them in their comments. Check it out!

We believe Widgets can be effective marketing tools for some credit unions to reach Gen Y’ers with certain financial information and products. Widgets can enable Gen Y’ers to place financial-related content on their own Web sites.

Good news is, Widgets can be easily created at a low cost. Better news is, they can be monetized! Right now though, widgets are mostly about generating brand awareness across multiple Web platforms ... and gathering prospective customer data. ProjectNewAge will keep you apprised of Widgets and their potential uses for your Gen Y marketing.

GREAT CASE STUDY FOR AVATAR PROMOTION

Regular visitors to ProjectNewAge.com and our Gen Y Marketing Webinars have heard countless times that avatars play a major role in the lives of Gen Y’ers. Well, Global brand Microsoft knows that, too, and is connecting with Gen Y’ers via sharing digital avatars.

The global brand recently launched The Ultimate Steal, a campaign promoting a price-reduced version of its Office Ultimate suite for Gen Y students. To help facilitate online buzz about the promotion, the company partnered with Oddcast to use its Voki talking avatar platform, and has created two "playgrounds" where Gen Y’ers can create avatars that tell their own personal stories.

Called the “Ultimate College All-Nighter” and the “Ultimate College Idol,” these playgrounds challenge Gen Y’ers to not only create the avatar to tell their own story, or to sing along with their voice, but also invites them to share it by placing a copy of the avatar on their social networking site or Web page.

The online promotion is a fun site for Gen Y’ers, so we feel it's worth all credit union Gen Y Marketing Teams checking it out as a case-study in user-generated content-driven marketing with avatars, which is an increasingly common activity and very popular today with Gen Y’ers.

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"With The Ultimate Steal we've been trying a lot of standard marketing tactics, but this time we said we want to do something viral that can grow dynamically," said Prasid Pathak, student lifestyle marketing manager for Microsoft. No doubt Microsoft is hoping Gen Y’ers engage with its brand by putting these avatars on their Facebook profiles, which is far more powerful than just placing an ad banner somewhere on the site.

Gen Y’ers who create avatars on the sites are entered to win prizes, such as a Microsoft Xbox 360 and games for the system. The Voki avatars will be available on the site until January 31, though the broader Ultimate Steal campaign will continue until April 30. ProjectNewAge.com will continue monitoring the program and report back in early '08.

ATTEND FIRST-EVER AMA SOCIAL MEDIA EVENT!

If you've attended the PSCU Webinars on Social Media marketing, you know the challenges of reaching today's younger audiences: the all-elusive Generation Y'er.

One of our jobs at ProjectNewAge.com is keeping PSCU member credit unions apprised of Gen Y marketing educational opportunties being offered around the country. That's why we're passing along information about an upcoming American Marketing Association event called Harnessing the Power of Social Media.

AMA will conduct conferences on January 11, Miami ... February 22, San Diego ... and March 28, Chicago. We strongly encourage everyone to attend! 

This is a first-ever AMA education series focused exclusively on Social Media, which is important because as we all know Gen Y can't be reached with traditonal print and broadcast media. Gen Y watches 1-2 hours of TV per week. Gen Y doesn't tolerate commercials, because they don't have to ... thank you, TiVo. And Gen Y most definitely rejects overly slick, highly produced ad messages.

So how do we reach them? Social Media!

For a quick sneak preview into some PSCU Webinar Topics for 2008, we plan to discuss an emerging and highly effective new PR tool, the Social Media News Release (download SMNR Template), which allows today's marketers to reach younger audiences via Social Media outlets, such as blogs and podcasts.

With a Social Media News Release, you can also include Web links, rich media such as video and audio files, hi-res images, PDFs ... and even Technorati tags. Stay tuned for more information about 2008 Webinars. In the meantime, feel free to contact us for more immediate information about Social Media News Releases.