El Gaffney

That’s So College

Two videos that leave me in awe of college students. (Sorry no Asher Roth below.)

Mike Posner is a senior at Duke (via Shut Up We’re Blogging)

Bang-yao Lui is a senior at Savannah College of Art and Design (via Brand Flakes for Breakfast)

And of course, there are these recent Harvard grads who started Unithrive (a non-profit loan program at Harvard) featured in the Sunday Times.

Tags: art, college, entrepreneurs, genY, students, videos

And Boom Goes The Holiday Party

You irresponsible motherfuckers.

Advertising. While holiday parties are being canceled, scaled back, etc., it reminds me of all the other holiday parties I’ve been to in my 6 years in the biz. Every year some of the geezers (original MadMen) of the industry and even some of the old guys (30-40 year-old’s, that is) talk about parties past. The wild times without worries or inhibitions. The excess. The skinny dipping. The drugs.

No. I don’t want the drugs. But we didn’t get our good ‘ole days or our dot-com boom. People my age came in at the bust, enjoyed a few normal years, and now have to deal with this crazy recession.

So. Realize this: We don’t want to hear about your stinkin’ glory day holiday events. And realize what we’re thinking on the other days when you tell us to pay our dues: “Why? We’re already paying for the mess you’ve made.”

What we’d actually prefer to do is roll up our sleeves and get to solving the problem. What we don’t want to do is roll up our sleeves and do the bullshit work while you get to “take a stab” at solving it.

You taught us this top-down model. AAE to AD eventually. A good idea can come from anywhere in the creative department. You value our understanding of “the digital life” enough to hear our explanation of how we use social networks but not enough to put us in the room with the potential client, to whom you’re selling that understanding.

And not just in the ad industry. You taught my Banking friends that it’s normal to work 90 hours a week, be unhealthy but filthy rich. You taught the Asset Managers to manage relationships, you’ll take care of the investments. You taught my friends in Fashion to sell on shows, showrooms, and parties. You taught those working for Magazines and Newspapers to worry about content, not the medium/delivery mechanism. You taught new Teachers to stick to the curriculum and focus on preparing students for standardized tests if they want tenure. That this is just the way it is; that we should just deal with it. We fell in line and look what happened.

You taught us to respect our elders. We say, “Earn it.”

It’s time for new ways.

[This rant was inspired by this fantastic post by Charles Frith, a responsible "old" guy in advertising (which there are many others including Gen Gifted on right sidebar), who used the word "party" in the title of his post. My title inspired by this.]

Tags: genY, party, rants

Getting Young Latinos to Vote

An example of how an organization targeted the Hispanic Youth market online.

I’ve been meaning to post this video (below) for a couple of weeks now since Gonzalo Perez of Motivo Insights showed it at an ESPN off-site. It’s been online since May, so I’m already late to this party. But isn’t that the Latino way! (Don’t worry that’s not whitey speaking out of turn; he and another speaker confirmed this was not just a stereotype that day.) Anyway, Voto Latino teamed up with Declare Yourself to get young (18-29) Latinos involved in the voting process (first and foremost, by getting them to register to vote). This, one in a series of videos, is the result:

“La Pasion De La Decision” definitely seems to resonate with the members of this audience, who embrace their hybrid Hispanic-American lives. They no doubt feel a connection to Telenovelas (whether they grew up with them or through their parents/grandparents) but likely think they are just as over the top as their non-Hispanic counterparts/friends. The message doesn’t get lost in the spoof, IMO, and benefits greatly from the story being played by Wilmer Valderrama (of whom, I’m an unashamed supporter) and Rosario Dawson (of whom, I’m certainly not ashamed fan). Also check out episode 3, for a cameo by Craigslists’ Craig Newmark.

Te sigo amando.

Tags: celebs, genY, latinos, videos

The New School vs. The Old School

For those of you not up on the latest hip-hop feud, I recently read on Kanye West’s blog (and was reminded today on Chet’s) about the beef between Ice T and Soulja Boy.

Rather than embed each of the now 4 videos central to this rivalry, I’ll just link to them and describe the history as best I can to get you up to speed.
1st: Ice T disses Soulja Boy on DJ Cisco’s UrbanLegends Mix Tape it gets posted on YouTube by RealTalkNY.net
2nd: Soulja Boy comes back at Ice T through a webcam and posts it on his site iSouljaBoy.net and YouTube
3rd: Ice T responds to Soulja Boy through a video taken in his home by RealTalkNY.net which then gets posted to YouTube
4th: Soulja Boy makes this animated video as a response to Ice T

Whether you agree with T that SB single-handedly killed hip-H-O-P is not important to me. (Rhyming, as always, is!) I’m more interested in how it highlights the digital divide. That is, this conflict seems to really capture the new school vs. the old school mentality not only towards hip-hop but also towards the new digital mindset. This is more than merely the comfort with using Web 2.0 technologies such as YouTube (or as Ice T calls it, “the YouTubes” and such); it is the way that the collaborative nature of the Internet changes our way of thinking and acting.

Sure, Soulja Boy gets in a few jabs on Ice T like calling him older than the Internet (I don’t even want to know what he thinks of John McCain’s age). Sure, he calls out Ice T based on the things he finds out about T from Wikipedia. Sure, he looks straight into his webcam to make the video and does so with friends around. But more importantly, the Web helps him see the world as a place where we can all win. He doesn’t see the hip hop game as a zero sum game. In fact, we probably have a better chance if we collaborate with others. We actually have an even better chance if we involve our audience, our fans. He redefines the competitive set. He believes in the power of coopetition.

As a Gen GuY and GalYs on the edge of X and Y (see sidebar with links), I feel we are in a unique position to empathize with both sides. We have an ability to understand Ice T’s gripes and Soulja Boy’s retort quite naturally. We feel disappointed by Soulja Boy’s lack of respect and lack of command over the English language as well as by Ice T’s lack of appropriate language and lack of constructive feedback (mentorship or solution). Most of all, though, we want to bridge the digital gap through better, more constructive and instructive communication. On- and off-line.

We’re down for whatever. Holla!

Tags: genY, hiphop, web2.0

Don’t Be Ben Jacobs

Came across this undeniably funny-because-it’s-true article in the Onion today thanks to Chet. The article’s title is “Ad Campaigns Appeals to Young, Hip, Influenced-By-Ad-Campaigns Demographic.” An excerpt:

“This is exactly the type of customer we’re looking to reach,” said the campaign’s chief strategist Ben Jacobs, 28. “It’s showing tremendous impact on the cool, media-savvy rebels who distrust authority, prize alternative culture, think outside of the mainstream, and are willing to base their actions entirely on advertising images presented to them on TV. How dope is that?”

So this post is just a reminder for me and other Gen GuY and GalY planners (or creatives or account peeps) out there not to become Ben. And a reminder for marketers to really get to know their audience on a deeper level even if they’ve picked the demographic wisely.

via Someecards. By the way, this was the featured e-card when I just visited the site. Pure gold.

Tags: advice, genY, onion, planning, someecards