The psychological profile of emerging adults is marked by “identity exploration, instability, self-focus, feeling in-between and a rather poetic characteristic [Arnett] calls ‘a sense of possibilities.’” Should this life stage be fully adopted by the professional and academic community, we may see policy changes in health care, education and social services sometime in our future, but there are real implications for marketers now.

As a result of this psychological profile, emerging adults “slouch toward adulthood at an uneven, highly individual pace.” For marketers, this means age alone can’t be used as a means to target. People in this age group reach traditional milestones at different times. “In 1960, 77 percent of women and 65 percent of men had, by the time they reached 30, passed all five milestones [completing school, leaving home, becoming financially independent, marrying and having a child]. Among 30-year-olds in 2000, according to data from the United States Census Bureau, fewer than half of the women and one-third of the men had done so.”

As we noted in our paper, The impact of today’s financial crisis on Generation Y, published in early 2009, “the needs of a 25-year-old who is single living in NYC has vastly different needs from a married 25-year-old with a young child at home.”

Thankfully, today’s media options allow for more acute and accurate targeting based on psychographics. Furthermore, it provides greater credence to leverage social media when addressing this audience; as social media provides brands with the opportunity to curate, create and encourage user-generated content, which individuals can then share with who they believe, are the appropriate peers within their social circle. Ultimately, social media allows individuals to self select into brand communities they feel are most relevant.

Whether or not Arnett’s emerging adult movement takes root, marketers are likely to face continued challenges in finitely targeting those in the 18 to 30 age group. However, marketers are now armed with a mix of media to meet the challenge and deliver relevant brand experiences to their intended audience.

Related articles:

• We’re Not Immature, We’re “Emerging Adults” [Kids Today] (jezebel.com)
• Divergent Perspectives on Emerging Adulthood (psypress.com)

From Patrick Boegel:

This is a nice update article on a service we have already discussed a bit, Jack Dorsey’s Square, but of even more interest is the Verizon Droid ad that is running below the end of the story copy.  It contains a commercial for Droid, links to the branded Twitter account and Facebook fan page, as well as a scrolling list of articles reviewing the product.  These are the ads we heard about being developed by Federated Media. Very engaging.

From Ron Ladouceur:

I can’t get over the excessively creepy/macho/90s techno/Lord of the Rings “towering eye” goofy look tone and feel of the Droid campaign. Dark and geeky. When mashed up with the Twitter bird, it comes off as downright Web 1.0. Given the Verizon backbone, I imagine the product will be successful. But the ethos seems to be such a throwback.

Designers, any of you have an opinion on this?

From Simona Bortis-Schultz:

The droid campaign doesn’t appeal to me either and seemed old fashioned… but perhaps the demographic they are targeting really digs the droid and the “creepy/macho/90s techno/Lord of the Rings ‘towering eye’”… it’s perhaps targeting male generation x-rs, who were in their element in the 90s?

From Beth Mickalonis:

The LTF seems like it is targeting a “PC” crowd (those people that are anti-Mac, gamers) I know a few of them and I think this is the smart phone that would appeal to them based of the anti-Mac theory alone.

From Ivan Marrero:

I can’t stand their new ads. Seems they’re reaching for a new angle – something drastically different than Apple’s iPod campaign.   They end up doing something that might have been cool 10 years ago. Kind of sad and dorky. I have to say they did get me excited with their teaser ads.

From Ron Ladouceur:

I think Simona’s analysis is exactly correct. If you’re going to fight the iPhone, you need to stake a position in opposition to stand out. Apple being so “gender neutral” and “age neutral” leaves little room. Go for the boys!

From Maura Lilley:

It reminds me of the 1984 Apple TV spot. But not in a cool retro way…

From Greg Johnson:

Agreed. It’s the anti- (iPhone, bubbly, gadgety, doohickey) campaign. Personally, I don’t particularly care for the Droid campaign either. However, knowing how popular the dark Transformer/Terminator/Star Trek movies have been, someone must know something about the people who are scooping these things up. Note: The phone itself is actually pretty neat (not dark and menacing at all)

From Michael Rodgers:

I pretty much agree… By marketing themselves so overtly techy/anti-Apple, they will absolutely attract the iPhone-haters – but they would have gotten those people no matter what. This campaign will do nothing for them when it comes to stealing current iPhone users away.

All that being said, it’s also a campaign that was destined for early success (see all the stories hyping its “huge sales numbers”). So many people have been waiting for the iPhone (or similar) to go to Verizon, they will flock early. The real question will be if anyone is buying this phone in 2 months.

And yes, I also hate the campaign.

Incidentally, it appears we’re not the only ones with strong opinions on Droid’s marketing… plenty of people out there either love it or hate it.

What do YOU think?

“Brand values can be established as a brand identity, but they must believably exist in the mind of the consumer. A brand can’t just say it stands for something and make it so. The consumer will decide, making it more important than ever for a brand to have measures of authenticity that will aid in brand differentiation and consumer engagement.”

–MarketingVOX

Case in point: Purchase College. This premier member of the State University of New York system had what many might consider an enviable situation – it was experiencing very little difficulty in recruiting students.

The challenge was in student retention.

As part of the SUNY system, Purchase College attracted many students expecting a “typical” SUNY experience – something you definitely won’t find at the distinctly different Purchase College. Even internally, Purchase had become a college of two minds, a unique combination of both arts conservatory and liberal arts/sciences mainstay.

In order to get more of the right students to apply and have fewer of the wrong ones enroll, Purchase College needed to start talking about itself in a more authentic and direct way – allowing prospective students to “self-select.”

Through our Mine & Dine and BrandAmp products, Media Logic quickly worked to uncover, identify and create a unified vision. Media Logic provided the necessary forum for leaders from across the campus community to come together and resolve the tension between the school’s “arts” side and its “liberal arts” side.

Under Media Logic’s guidance, Purchase College created a brand that was far more than the sum of its parts. Essential to the branding process were qualitative research, a geo-demographic analysis, predictive modeling and a comprehensive recruitment and retention plan. We were able to determine that Purchase’s ultimate value came not solely from its programs, but from the unique mindset and culture of the students themselves.

The entire campus – from faculty and students to administrators and alumni – embraced the new brand as an authentic reflection of who they really were. It was integrated into all recruitment communications, and guidelines were established to extend it across the entire college.

After the launch of the new brand, applications increased more than 60%. Selectivity was also up 16% (more than 30% for liberal arts), and persistence has risen by 10% and 12%, respectively.