Say What? We Wanted To Focus On Downtown + Its Funky Offerings.



Those are the words Michelle Streeter used in an article by East Valley Tribune reporter Shelley Ridenour yesterday to describe a 7-month mobile advertising campaign by Millennial Media [acquired by AOL, a subsidiary of Verizon, for $248 Million on October 23, 2015] who was hired by Visit Mesa, the tourism marketing arm for the city, to specifically target a demographic group called millennials to lure them here downtown for "funky offerings".
That's slightly off the mark when advertising industry publication AdAge predicts that in 2016, marketing and communications professionals will stop targeting millennials as one demographic and focus on reaching the younger consumers based on their passions, according to a study released on Nov 17, 2015 by Hotwire PR.

Why focus on millennials as one population
group for this ad campaign-buy [price not disclosed] when you can easily see in the infographic from the U.S. Census Bureau from July 2014 that there's almost an even spread from the ages of 25-65+?
That's more to the point than what the article reports "Millennials, described as people born in the 1980s and 1990s and sometimes called generation Y, now represent a larger percentage of the American population than generation X, their predecessors."

[Blogger's Note: More than 60% of internet usage occurs on a mobile device, with the millennial generation accounting for the largest demographic accessing the web via their smart phone or tablet. According to Nielsen, more than 85% of millennials in the U.S. own smartphones and they touch them an average of 45 times per day.]

Mark Garcia, VisitMesa CEO and President [whose wife Cori Garcia was recently "lured away to work for the City of Gilbert], is quoted as saying, "Visit Mesa officials want people to see that downtown Mesa is a new place to play," As noted in a post here early in December of last year, the advertising featured a 3:12 video. Streeter is quoted in yesterday's article saying "early results show it’s working."

A check just now turned up the result from YouTube that the video Our Downtown is Your Playground received 1,910 views after it was uploaded there on January 26, 2016 with only 20 'likes' to date. . .
A good return on investment - who's to say?

Garcia also says, "We anticipated that light rail would bring in new customers but it’s the unique businesses that have relocated or opened here that have truly lured in a new visitor.” He deservedly gives credit to the individual Main Street entrepreneurs who have taken the risk and made the investment to open new businesses [Power Pill, Lulubell's, Desert Eagle Brewery, Smith-O-Later Custom Bake Shop, Volstead Public House to name a few] here in the New Urban DTMesa - partnering with established businesses to promote Pop-Up events like the first Mesa Music Festival and the Southeast MakerFest, for example as well as regular weekly and monthly street attractions MACFest, Motorcycles on Main, 2nd Friday and 3rd Friday Night's Out. All these attract a broader spectrum that includes millennial. Established city-owned institutions like Mesa Arts Center, museums and other venues no doubt attract a greater share of visitors in all generations.
When talking about results what works for most people are numbers and data. Instead what's reported in the article are additional quotes like this:
In December, the top mobile landing pages on the Visit Mesa website were four directly connected to the millennial campaign. That means the millennial ads drew in the most mobile activity to the website. “Right now it is our top mobile referral site,” she said. “We’re seeing incredible results, and we’re realizing how much more people use their phones.”
Top Mobile Landing Pages: 1 2 3 4 [activity numbers?]
Actual Results for top mobile referral site: # hits ______

Institutional Investors Are Dumping Millennial Media Inc (NYSE:MM) by Linda Rogers — March 8, 2016
Millennial Media, Inc. is an independent mobile advertising marketplace delivering services and products to advertisers and developers. The company has a market cap of $249.14 million. The Firm offers advertisers a suite of solutions that allow them to reach and connect with the target audiences across screens, from smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices to PCs. It currently has negative earnings.

http://www.clintongazette.com/institutional-investors-are-dumping-millennial-media-inc-nysemm/