Men Spent More Than Women on Black Friday

I'm sure most marketing 'experts' would have painted the male shopper on Black Friday as too hung over from all the football and turkey to ever get out of bed. Surely he is still on the couch hugging the remote. Well it just didn't turn out that way this year and really most years Men are a lot more important than most marketing teams give them credit for.

Look at the facts in this link - http://www.ddimagazine.com/displayanddesignideas/headlines/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003438851

While Women may have outnumbered Men (47.9% Women and 37.4% Men) the Men way outspent the Women. Men on average spent $420.37 while the Women spent 304.30. When it came to BIG TICKET items Men were the ones making the decisions and laying down the cash. Take a look at the link and you can see what they spent money on. It's a great range of goods and ones that your sales team should be able to pull in some business on.

In Rock radio sales we often get ignored. 'Your audience (men) doesn't shop we are spending the marketing dollars on women' is an excuse we've all heard for years. Perhaps it's time to see that Men spend money. If you want it rock formats and sports are most likely your best avenues. Sports costs a ton of money - so welcome to rock radio.

TV - NOT for Boomers???

Was catching up on the local news and hit an story on a survey that finds Boomers are Alienated by TV - www.southbendtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061121/Ent04/611210478/-1/ENT

The study was done by Harris Interactive and comes up with a number of findings on Boomer's opinions on TV:

• 37% of boomers are unhappy with TV programming.
  
• Over 80% claim they have a hard time finding TV shows that reflect their lives
• Over 66% belive most TV programs and advertising is aimed at people under 40

This is no surprise as TV has been obsessed with being 18-49 for the last 10 years and now over 60% of the boomers are older than 49. Advertisers are far more concerned with Paris Hilton than Sharon Stone. The marketers see the echo boomer generation still building their preferences and they want to be in the club at all costs.

On the McVay website I just did an analysis of the under 34 generation showing the losses radio is suffering in the demo and some ideas to rekindle the youth radio market:
www.mcvaymedia.com/rock/06/younger_demos_leaving_radio_pt1.html
Radio is clearly falling out with the younger demos and while TV hasn't taken them away it's all the other media out there. Clearly Radio will have to go on younger demo life support for a while to regain strength here.

Remember the old saying - 'when you get lemons you make lemonade.' Maybe it's time to start selling and marketing the huge strength that radio has in reaching the largest generation ever that is now in their prime earning years in their 50s. For many the kids are gone and they are planning a retirement and consuming consuming consuming.

Reaching them on TV (the survey shows boomers are not happy there), going on the internet (MySpace for boomers? - I don't see it). The only electronic media left is Radio and it reaches over 90% of them. They listen around 10 hours a week on the average. Sounds like a pitch to me let's do lunch and write it up.

Borat Proof WEB Marketing is the NEW POWER

In case you haven't heard the Borat Movie - Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan won it's opening week at the movie box office with over 26 Million. Winning the top spot over Santa Clause 3 and Flushed Away. The real key here is Borat opened in only 837 screens, about 1/3rd of the normal opening.

How did this happen? Maybe the big star power, Borat/Sacha Baron Choen's career amounts to a cameo in Talladega Nights and a short run on HBO as the Da Ali G Show. Or was it millions in special effects and a 4 star director? No this was largely shot with 1 camera in a grainy TV news style with mostly adlibs from Borat. Was it from the great TV spots, tons of well placed trailers, big appearences, or millions spent? No it was mostly generated from a few well placed appearences on SNL, Letterman, Leno and a few other smaller shows and TONS of internet marketing. Look at some of the efforts on the WEB:

• YouTube - Movie clips. They posted a ton all summer long.
• MySpace - Free movie sneak peaks for MySpace members in a number of markets
• MySpace - Tons of HTML downloads of movie scenes, music, pics and even deleted scenes for you to download to your site.
• Ringtones
• Banner Advertising on MySpace - The banner looked more like a hype for site not a movie.
• Google - Adwords/Adsense
• Web Site - A truly tacky site that looked so geeky it was fun.

As you draw up your 07 marketing plan remember Borat. Maybe you don't need 300K in boards or 200K in TV. Maybe you need to dive into your computer and think in the new Web World. Just remember 'it has to be fun, hip and unique.'