More Mortar clients are complaining about selling to Millennials. And that got me wondering: what do the pundits have to offer on how to approach today’s Millennial?

Unlike previous generations, Millennials grew up with the promise of instant and frictionless access to information and one another.  As a result, they are more likely to think differently about what it means to “own” something. Writing in Fast Company, Josh Allan Dykstra writes that “this new attitude toward ownership is occurring everywhere, and once we recognize this change, we can leverage it. Instead of kicking against the wave (which is the tendency of many institutions and leaders), we can help our organizations thrive in this strange new marketplace by going with the flow and embracing the death of ownership”.

Look, Dykstra emphasizes, ownership just isn’t hard anymore: “We can now find and own practically anything we want, at any time. Because of this, the balance between supply and demand has been altered, and the value has shifted”.

We know the experience of acquisition matters a lot to us now, and this is especially true of Millennials: How we find out about and buy a product can be as important as what we actually do with it. For example, just consider how much time the modern marketing suite now spends in user experience discussions. Indeed for some eco-conscious customers what we do after we own a product can also be pivotal (like how do we dispose of all that ugly packaging that comes with every Amazon delivery?).

Facebook reminds us that experience is additionally powerful because of how it connects us to others. Our purchases have greater impact because we can perhaps do something worthwhile, tell others about it, and have it say something meaningful about us and our motivations. 

Our newest customers, then, approach ownership differently, encourage us to think beyond purchase through to the act of use, and what the conversation might be around our product and the experience we provide.

Here are five of the more obvious ways Millennials buy differently—along with some tips on what Marketers might be able to do to take advantage of the change:

1. Millennials are more likely to buy things because of what it says about them.

The product or service we deliver can help people do something significant that goes beyond actual use. Method, Seventh Generation, ZipCar, Southwest Airlines have all built brands around a superior and differentiated view of what their customer wants. Action: Make sure you tell your customers what their purchase actually says about them: look for ways to connect your product to something they will find meaningful and compelling. Mortar’s repositioning of Fair Trade USA leveraged this insight with “Every Purchase Matters” tagline.

2. Millennials buy things because of what they can tell others about it.

Of course there’s a social piece to owning something that is ever more vibrant. The joy isn’t all in the having it is in the sharing. When we share something we like with others we create a bond that is meaningful—and “the goodwill created in that moment expands to encompass our brand and our business in general”. Action: Start to think of your employees, their families, your customers, commentators, prospects and maybe even rivals, as a community of like-minded people coming together to achieve something new and important. Tell prospects more about what their purchase could say about their work and their position in the community. Give your community more opportunities to share the news of their finds. And be responsive to feedback. Witness Mortar’s client Chef Software leverages community to spread the power of increased automation in IT..

3. Millennials are more apparent about their values.

Millennials are very open about how their values shape behavior.  As Dykstra indicates this maybe “explains why so many Millennials are moving to Urban areas. Although it is tempting to see the return to the cities as anti-car, instead, it could be more about all the other things a “non-car life” represents: it helps Millennials be more environmentally conscious, socially aware, and local. This distinction of purpose may seem nuanced, but motivation is a powerful differentiator (perhaps one of the most powerful)”. Action: Understand the values that drive your audience. Connect people to something bigger than themselves through your product or service. Our work for San Francisco’s famed Exploratorium museum is obviously designed to help its community enjoy learning about their environment with a special emphasis on science, but not so clear–but nevertheless critical–is the hidden appeal to building an informed citizenry through increased engagement. 

4. Millennials hate to wait.

We all hate to wait. But Millennials have grown up in an age of abundant choice and easy switching. Waiting for them is not just a chore it is an offense and an indication you just don’t care. Action: Take a look at how you engage with your customers and prospects and implement new tools that will enable you to message customers when they are on your website, respond in real-time to questions. Be flexible and authentic with your responses. Wired indicates that more than 50% of customers will abandon their cart on the spot if they can’t get a question answered immediately.

5. Millennials love to shop on their smartphone.

Mobile is the platform of choice for most of us, and this is certainly true of Millennials. Indeed, pundits point out that Millennials just aren’t using their desktop computers as much. And they are not alone: how many of us grasp our iPhone’s like our lives depend on them? Action: make sure your mobile experience is awesome.

As Toffler warned in Future Shock, technology disruption happens fast—but it takes society a long time to catch up and adjust to changes in behavior. Amidst all the concern about selling to young buyers lurks an incredible opportunity to differentiate and grow. Don’t be one of those leaders who thinks they can thrive by ignoring the fastest growing part of their market

* Picture credit from Fast Company.

First whiteboard: the Cross-Cloud era lives. Palo Alto April 22, 2016.

Strategic Marketing Decisions (SMDs) don’t come any bigger than last week’s announcement of VMware’s new cross-cloud architecture (which we helped create). With cross-cloud VMware is betting there is more money to made in catering to business’ need to consume different clouds than there is in building and marketing its own cloud.Here’s just some of what this, the single biggest decision about cloud since, well, the beginning of cloud (*celestial trumpets blare*), could mean for marketers like us:

Cross-cloud is a massive new playground for innovation and delight.

There are already a lot of clouds. Microsoft, Amazon and Google are the public clouds we know. But others also offer clouds: Joyent, Ninefold, Rackspace. Thousands more flavors are sure to follow. We must now shift from thinking of cloud as something offered by a small number of massive vendors to how we will surf across multiple environments custom-built for us by smaller, nimbler, more specialized providers. And VMware is the first of many trusted guides.

Existing notions of hybrid cloud (public/private cloud) too will need to expand to allow for workloads that span the data center and multiple public clouds.  With these new options, business gets the ability to draw on the power of infinitely dedicated resources when the need arises, without being limited by the capability and practices of one vendor. Which in turn means we can shift from marketing cloud as a good thing for service delivery and lower costs, to waking up to the possibilities that the cloud is an infinite canvas for innovation and progress.

Cross-cloud is another reminder the future will be open.

That cross-cloud is happening was not hard to predict. Technology is an irresistible disruptor and innovation abhors limit. AWS, for all its glory–and make no doubt about it, the rise of Amazon’s cloud is an epic success–is still a closed environment. AWS does not have an incentive to encourage other clouds. VMware’s cross-cloud move is one more indicator that the long-term future of technology will be open. And that whenever we are tempted to throw up walls around progress–all we do is tempt others to knock them down.

Cross-cloud means we can drop the from “cloud”.

For a decade now we have been figuring out how to talk about “cloud”. Now the singular is forever “clouds” plural we can drop the “the” and talk about the move to cloud without upsetting our grammar coaches.  But we had better get a move on as ubiquity will soon give rise to irrelevance. After all, besides technologists talking to technologists do consumers really care how we get them services?  They care more about what we get to them–and what they can do with their new powers.

Cross-cloud means faster, cheaper, better marketing experiences.

With diversity comes choice, competition, and the need for portability. Technically there is no such thing as a cross-cloud application just yet. Yet. The pundits say it is too tough. Mind you, several other Mortar clients have already made cross-cloud moves: With Habitat Chef have figured out how configuration can travel with apps across metal, on and off premises. Netskope offer protection against bad elements hidden in the cloud. And Cycle Computing has baked a model around making sense of out-of-control cloud pricing. His company, Cycle’s Rick Friedman says, enables organizations “to be cross-cloud by managing the mess behind the curtain“. 

And now one of the largest software companies in the world, VMware, have focused their entire strategy on the cross-cloud promise. As VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger said after VMworld: “VMware in the past has been about hardware freedom. VMware of the future will be about cloud freedom.” (Parent Dell followed suite by filing for multiple cross-cloud trademarks).

For marketers, this is a reminder of our expanded ability to deliver richer digital experiences. Too much digital marketing remains focused on rudely interrupting people versus, say, giving them the opportunity to download an experience to their device. (For an example watch how Instagram now offers users the opportunity to download an app right from their feed). A wider range of specialized clouds opens the door to faster, more engaging, more personal delivery of digital brand extensions. In the cross-cloud era, choice and competition ride long with lower prices and improved delivery options.

In the cross-cloud era imagination will increasingly take point.

The big A-ha here is that cross-cloud is where the puck is going to be. The cloud is only ten years old, and already we are talking about more cloud, bigger apps, greater velocity, ever grander innovation and scale. It is no surprise technology is headed to the cloud. What is surprising is that the world is only just now waking up to the promise of engineering across multiple clouds. For a long time now advances in marketing have been wedded to developments in engineering (think cookies, CRM, Facebook, the conversation about agile). Where engineering goes, we tend to follow. Only maybe this time we can take point?

The cross-cloud era has arrived folks. We’re thrilled to have played some role in the birth of the world’s foremost cross-cloud pioneer. Perhaps we can help you make sense of it too?

As most of Mortar’s work is in activities defined by group decision making (tourism, technology, education and healthcare) a call to develop individual target personas can leave us scratching our heads. Understanding the fabric that connects teams can be more useful.

Consider the rise of the DevOps movement in IT. DevOps teams boost productivity by eliminating the gap between creator and executor. To ignore the conversation between these two as they move through their day is to fail to grasp what they agree—and what they need to succeed. (Hence Slack “the messaging app for teams” and Atlassian’s Jira “the software development tool for agile teams” positioning as group-based collaboration tools).

And it’s not just tech that is rediscovering the importance of targeting teams. As the Cleveland Clinic’s Dr. James Young sees it, “health care’s no longer a gladiatorial sport with one person — no matter how smart — going up against the challenges. Instead, it’s a team effort, and today’s medical education has begun to reflect that trend”.

In some categories, persona development can be too blunt a tool for exploiting motivation. If you need to target team decisions, look hard at riding the wave of group dynamics. Here are five ways understanding connective tissue can bring your marketing back from the dead:

1. Teams are groups of individuals united by a common purpose.

Even if the reason people work together is the same, how they see their work will vary substantially. Simple one-on-one interviews (by phone) with team members is a good way to map the contours of a committee. For another perspective, see Deloitte’s Kim Christfort on their (fresh) approach to personality profiling here.

2. Groups talk. So connect to what they say to one another. 

What is the nature of the conversation on the team? Who talks to who and about what? Ask them. Gather them together in groups of two and three and listen to what they say to one another. Pay special attention to the words they use. The roles they assume. And be especially conscious to of the topics they avoid.

3. Groups decide. So figure out how they make a call.

Miller & Heiman write convincingly about the buying roles of complex teams, counseling Sales to pay attention to “buying influences” and identify a coach who can help pluck signals from the noise. Despite apparent similarities, different groups will draw radically alternative conclusions from the same data. Charting the path they might follow is a useful marketing strategy especially in big ticket sales.

4. Groups analyze. Winning is as much a team sport as an individual mark of accomplishment. Goals are the primary connective tissue.

Give some time to considering shared goals. Goals always have three dimensions: quantity (amount, numbers, clicks), quality (feelings, perceptions, vision) and time (you want it when?).  How many digital marketing teams are so focused on the clickstream that they ignore the other two dimensions? Addressing goals can be an effective way to cement disparate people and bring them closer to buying your product. Make sure you address all three categories.

5. Groups feel: how does the group change when they use your product or service? Every group can be unified by insight about their customer. 

What happens to their customers—and how does that impact the team?  Teams that succeed feel different than those that don’t. Pride and accomplishment are attractive and viral because success has many fathers but failure is an orphan. Demonstrating how your product can help everyone on the team win, can work to motivate individuals and groups.

We chose the name Mortar because we are obsessed with the importance of connective tissue. Our business is differentiation–yours and ours. Applying the same tools to the same problems rarely yields fresh answers. If you are having trouble convincing the world what you are doing is indeed special, take time to dig under the cushions for the connections that spur action.

Isn’t it time we stopped thinking about people as consumers, customers, clients or, heaven forbid, a target audience.

And started thinking about them as a community.

A group of like-minded souls with the power to engage with your organization, your products and with each other?

By helping our clients tap community, we’ve helped create over $14 billion in market value.

From software to security; self-improvement to longevity; destinations and experiences; Mortar has focused on tapping the power and potential of our client’s and their communities.

Think about it. If we are aiming our messages at a community we need to think of our audience in that way. As people who talk to one another. About us.

And we are all talking to communities. Sure, each of us is interested in a different sub-set of humanity.

Whether we divvy up our customers by job title, culture, affinity, identity, location or some other factual or emotional profile, our customers are best thought of as a group.  Community members chatter with one another about what they see and experience in text, Instagram, on Facebook, on Twitter, Tumbler and at the coffee shop.

Which means that we marketers should think of ourselves as community managers and leaders. As Mayors. Senators. Congressmen. PTA stewards. Chefs. Generals. Mothers. Fathers. Leaders. Educators.

If we miss this essential step we fail to understand who we are talking to and, it follows, what really matters to them. Which is why so much of what marketers say—either directly or through their agents—falls flat and fails to inspire.

Communities are shaped by common beliefs, a level of affinity and similarity. Every community has a special kind of connective bond. The links we share, the invisible dark matter that cements one human to another, is the raw material of great marketing.

Mortar is an advertising agency. Yes, an advertising agency. We don’t apologize for being what we are. And neither do we let it keep us up at night. Our job is to persuade, cajole, brighten or otherwise compel communities to buy what our clients are selling.

What sets us truly apart is in our name: Mortar. We are all about the glue that binds groups to action, thought to outcome, products to change.

We believe every single marketing assignment needs to start with deciding what unites the community we care about. Then we can make Strategic Marketing Decisions about how we will approach the group: what has the capacity to drive them wild with desire.

We enshrine this strategic decision in writing. And we match it with a sudden gasp of surprise—a A-ha moment. You will understand it as the moment a promise connects with an individual and fuels a conversation.

These three elements: a belief that connective tissue is the key to understanding today’s customer, that a decision must be made about which way to go, and that everything needs to ladder up to a single a-ha moment, differentiate our work.

None of it makes sense without a solid, unyielding, firm grasp of what unites—and separates.