A Moving Target for Marketing

The NYTimes has a great article today on how differently the Millennial audience (those born between 1980 and 2000) uses technology from the older (wiser?) generations. Yes, I read it first in the paper...then went online to blog about it. I'm sure the Millennials are laughing at my arcane approach to getting the news!

A couple of quotes I found of interest. First, on measuring social interaction:

"What's hard to measure, and what we're trying to measure," Mr. McKenzie continued, "is the impact of groupthink, of group mentality, and the tendency of what we might call the democratization of social interaction and how that changes this generation's relationship with almost everything they come in contact with."

Web analytics, as we know it, can only help with part of this equation. This is an area where properly applied AttentionTrust ideas might lend a hand.

Second quote - regarding advertising in non-traditional environments:

Marketers, for instance, have signaled a broad desire to bring television-style advertising to cellphones. As early as March, a limited number of Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel customers may begin seeing short video ads on their phones, in a test of consumer tolerance for the idea.

That will be interesting to watch unfold. From an analytics perspective, there's a lot of prep work required to track mobile devices successfully...but of course, it can be done. These are great challenges for this ever changing industry.