3 Reasons Why Mass Marketing Hype Failed to Attract Gen Y Customers

Mass advertising will NEVER work today

Today, mass marketing is no longer the hype of the town; however, some marketers still believe that hitting on the masses will win them their overall market share. And all they have to do is to tweak their mass advertisements a little to suit the new generation crowd.

These mass marketers will tend to overuse the word “creativity” in their pitch.

They believe that Gen Y Customers are trendy, modern, IT savvy, love music and many other cool stuffs. So, they think that by having trendy, cool and  ”creative” advertisements whether in print, TV commercials, radio jingles, events or online ads, Gen Y customers will surely be won over by them.

In your dreams, my friend.

In fact,  this will only happen in their so-called la la land. The age of mass marketing is losing its stronghold. This also explains why despite investing in millions dollars mass advertising campaign, big products brands such as the Nokia Lumia and Microsoft Windows 8 failed to make a dent on the smart phone and tablet market against Apple iphone, ipand and the Android.

Many traditional marketers still believe mass advertising is magic. Photo credits:Marketoonist.com

Here are 3 simple reasons why mass marketing hype can no longer work for the smart customers of today:

1. Smart Customers Think

All customers today are smart and they think a lot. They know that mass advertisements are just marketing gimmicks that interrupt them. They know that people inside the advertisements are all actors playing along their script.

Photo credits: Gapinvoid.com by Hugh Macleod

They also know that their choices are not limited to just your brand; and they have higher expectation excellent product quality and good customer service.

So, if the brand product sucks, other than not buying it and with the help of social media, the smart customers will also tell their many friends not to buy it as well.

2. Mass marketers make assumptions 

Are you making assumption? Photo credits: www.dilbert.com

I remembered one renowned brand who spent hundreds thousands of marketing dollars to organize a mass event in Singapore some time ago; they invite DJs, hip hop dancers, young music artiste to grace the event for them; in the hope that their product would definitely attract the modern Gen Y customers.

And guess what? That did not happen. The product failed to win the market share. People who went to the event would just say, “so what?”

You can never control the smart customers’ minds.

So, never assume that they will like your brand once they saw your advertisement or attended your mass event; you will need to go further than that. Marketers should educate their customers as well as giving them positive customer experience consistently.

3. The law of many numbers fails 

Well, a traditional marketing officer may tell you that marketing is like hitting the jackpot. The more money you spent on marketing, the more people you will reach and by the law of many numbers, you will confirmed have a lot of sales coming to you.

Banking your hopes on the law of numbers?

However, sad to say that the law of many number fails, especially in today era. It is no more about how to reach to the mass, but it is more about how to create a better brand experience so that people could buy your brand willingly.

To end, I would urge the marketers,who are still used to the traditional mass marketing tactics, to change their strategies entirely to something that is more effective and cost efficient so that they will see better ROI in their marketing campaigns.

Here is an inspiring and famous quote from Albert Einstein:

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.”