Search Engine and Email Marketing are Re-Shaping Advertising Investments | By Duane Crandall

An estimated $270 billion is spent on advertising each year with approximately 90 percent of that invested in ‘traditional’ methods. As I’m sure you have heard, read or seen, the Internet is altering this at an increasingly rapid pace. In particular, Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and EMail Marketing (EMM) are quickly becoming the [advertising] industry standard for reaching, targeting, and selling to businesses and consumers alike.

In today’s ‘digital’ age traditional advertising and marketing mediums are quickly becoming antiquated. Of course these traditional mediums, such as newspaper, magazine, TV and radio will continue to exist for years to come, however their value to the paying businesses will increasingly be challenged by the Internet – primarily by Search Engine and [permission based] EMail Marketing.

Powerhouse online advertising companies like Google and Yahoo! are quickly proving this to businesses worldwide, as well as their investors that utilize Search Engine Marketing (SEM), generating a healthy ‘Return On Investment’. Their ability to reach such highly targeted users of the vast and growing Internet is mind-boggling. Furthermore, SEM is unique in that it is a ‘voluntary and non-intrusive’ means of attracting potential customers. This makes it appealing to Internet users because it effectively puts them in control.

With hundreds of millions of Internet users searching via Google, Yahoo, MSN and AOL daily this has become a ‘no-brainer’ marketing tool for B2C operations, but is it as good for B2B companies? A recent study of 1500 participants revealed some interesting facts:

• When participants were asked to indicate how they would go about making a B2B purchase, 93.2 percent said they would research the purchase online.
• When asked if they would use a search engine at some point in this task, 95.5 percent of participants indicated that they would.
• Most users decided which listing to click on in seconds upon scanning the page therefore position is a factor, with over 60 percent clicking on the top 3 listings.
• When asked where they would start their search for information, 63.9 percent of participants chose a search engine over consumer review sites, e-commerce sites, manufacturer’s sites, and industry portals.
• When taking budget into consideration, manufacturer’s sites and industry portals were the chosen starting place as budgets increased. However, 86.9 percent of participants said they would visit a search engine after visiting those sites.

It can be concluded from delving into this and other research that search engines play a dominant role in B2B purchases and I highly encourage all businesses to participate accordingly. Additionally, you will find that search engines are used in the early- or mid-research phase of the buying cycle. It is at this juncture your business should be well prepared with their EMail Marketing (EMM) messages – permission based of course – to maximize your Return On Marketing Investment (ROMI).

Because search engine research takes place early in the buying cycle it is critical that your business [moreover its web site] capitalize on this traffic by collecting three simple pieces of data about your visitors – Name, Phone and Email Address. Of course it is advantageous to collect additional profiling data from the visitors but often times you will lose more than you gain by attempting this too early in the sales cycle.

Once you have these data points your email marketing messages – which should follow suit with your sales message and process – can increase the likelihood of a sale. If you’re wondering how, let me elaborate. Your email messaging can be helpful in making the sale by automating your email message sequence, thus leaving more time for your sales staff to focus on closing the opportunities that are ready to be closed. These automated email messages still appear to come from the appropriate sales person and are personalized with the recipient’s name but each email message can serve your entire sales staff. Additionally, the email messaging sequence can be [automatically] altered based on how the recipient is interacting or not interacting with your email messages. Hopefully by now you can see the enormous time savings [making your sales team more productive] and brand strengthening email marketing can deliver.

Now, let’s address the fundamental reason both SEM and EMM are so popular and so valuable – analytics! Yes, big brother [that being your business] is watching, learning, analyzing and reacting to, almost in real time, what your potential buyers are searching for and clicking on.

Imagine your sales team receiving leads like this:

Prospect Name: John Smith
Prospect Phone: 212-555-1234
Prospect Email: jsmith@xyzco.com

Keyword/phrase Used: Online Marketing Services

Date Searched: January 10, 2006
Date Subscribed: January 10, 2006

Email Activity

Businesses are always looking for a way to save money, reduce the sale cycle, and increase ROMI. With the rising cost of print and broadcast marketing, marketers are quickly turning to Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Email Marketing (EMM). SEM ensures top rankings in Yahoo, Google, and other main search engines so your website is listed at the top and seen first in the sponsored links.

SEM allows you to find targeted traffic and EMM to follow-up with emails that can be personalized and segmented to those customers. Instead of paying an employee to track and pursue each lead, the cycle can be geared toward each prospective customers’ action automatically. Plus SEM and EMM also allow you to easily track your results and amount spent per conversion through reporting.

This translates quickly and easily into massive ROI. One of the best examples is taken from a current customer. With SEM and EMM, a leading golf retail customer saw an increase of 500% in sales revenue over the same month last year. This is not hard to believe when you consider the success and expense reduction that both of these methods provide together. Sending out a 1000 emails will probably cost you about $50.00 where as sending out 1000 printed materials will cost you at anywhere from $500-$15,000 with no reporting, and a long wait for results.

So remember, SEM and EMM are each like a scoop of ice cream. One scoop is good by itself, but two scoops are always better. So if you not using SEM and EMM, you are missing out on valuable opportunities to save money, reduce your sales cycle, and increase your ROMI.

MOBILE-PHONE ADVERTISING IS FOCUS OF CTIA CONFERENCE

But Many Fear Alienating Impact of Phone Spam

By Alice Z. Cuneo

Published: April 05, 2006

LAS VEGAS (AdAge.com) — Marketing’s role on mobile phones takes center stage this week as the wireless industry today opens one of its largest conferences ever, CTIA Wireless 2006.

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Photo: AP

High hopes for the growth of the mobile-phone advertising business are tempered by concerns about consumer reaction to phone spam.

“How to advertise on mobile search, mobile video, interstitials, opt-in procedures” — those avenues are top of mind in a conference usually dominated by discussions of phone features, the wireless spectrum and other technical issues, said Mark Lowenstein, managing director of Boston-based mobile consultancy Mobile Ecosystem.

The new medium
With 200 million phones in circulation in the U.S., and 80% of them capable of downloading video, sending text messages and completing other so-called data-enabled functions, the wireless industry has begun focusing on their potential for marketing, and devising ways to attract more brands to the new medium.

In fact, MSNBC.com today led off the announcements at CTIA with news it was testing an ad-subsidized video service for cellphones. In the test, cellphone subscribers will have the option of receiving news and videos, and they’ll have the ability to save stories for later reference. Microsoft’s Windows Mobile and Embedded Devices Division is the ad sponsor.

“There’s still a lot of figuring out,” cautioned Louis Gump, chairman of the Mobile Marketing Association and VP-mobile at the Weather Channel. Mr. Gump led off a day-long session, “Marketing — The Mobile Channel,” yesterday.

Marketing intrusion?
Mr. Gump was concerned with one of mobile’s most ticklish issues. Marketers might be drawn to the mobile phone because the devices are now indispensable to many consumers. But at the same time consumers view the phone as an intimate device and might resent a marketing intrusion. Mr. Gump and others are concerned that if subscribers are spammed with mobile marketing, the medium’s potential will go the way of e-mail as a marketing tool.

The Mobile Marketing Association issues best-practices guidelines requiring double opt-in by consumers before they are charged for new promotions or applications. Mr. Gump said it was “critically important” that consumers “feel they have control over the experience.”

“If we don’t do things right, we’re going to have to live with that for a long time,” said Matt Jones, director-mobile products, USAToday.com.

In a positive sign for marketers, two speakers — Kristen Fox, manager-product marketing, Mobile ESPN Publishing, and Jim Cannella, national director-corporate partnerships, House of Blues — said they have experienced a very low opt-out rate with their mobile marketing efforts.

So far, marketers have used cellphones as a marketing tool through text-messaging polls, promotions and other short-code marketing programs. Advertising over the phone’s more advanced features, such as mobile Web or mobile video, has been limited.

Out of the Wild West
Tom Burgess, CEO, Third Screen Media, said his company is getting from $35 to $50 cost-per-thousand for mobile advertising with a click-through rate of 3.5%, much higher than Web click-through rates. “We’re evolving from the Wild West to a more stable environment,” said Mr. Burgess, predicting mobile marketing ultimately will grow faster than marketing did on the Internet.

Steven Smyth, VP-media, Reuters, said advertising will take the place of premium SMS (the purchase of ring tones or other content). Wireless subscribers pay extra on their phone bills for premium content. “We decided in the U.S. that ad support is key in driving adoption.”

Todd Anderman, president, Dennis Digital, said enthusiasm for mobile advertising is running so high he has to calm down marketers who want to do things like “a mobile blast” (sending messages to all customers of a carrier), something not possible because carriers wouldn’t allow it and subscribers would be alienated. “It’s 1996 all over again,” he said. He said a lot of his job lately “is about educating, hand-holding and a lot of managing expectations.”

Nihal Mehta, CEO of Ipsh, Omnicom’s mobile agency, said last year 15% of major brands were using mobile marketing. This year, the percentage has tripled to 45%, he said.

Strong attendance numbers
Other aspects of the dot-com era were evident at the show. CTIA spokesman Joseph Farren said attendance boomed this year to a high of about 40,000, up from 35,000 last year. He also noted an increasing international presence at the conference, with a record 20% from non-U.S. nations.

What explains the renewed interest in technology? A number of mobile startups are being acquired by other companies, and venture capitalists are pouring money into the business, said Mr. Mehta. Mobile broadcast software company Roundbox, Florham Park, N.J., announced yesterday it raised $15 million in funding. Last month, VeriSign, making a mobile play, purchased m-Qube for $250 million in cash.

But Mr. Mehta believes that the marketing applications of the mobile phone fueling the funding blitz won’t begin to pan out until 2008 or 2009. Between this year and then, he predicted, “there will be another bubble burst.”

ipsh!’s CEO provides examples of why you should consider a mobile marketing budget in your 2006 planning.

Close to 200 million people in the United States own cell phones, according to the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association, and they’re eager to test out their cool handsets today. They have already “texted in to win,” interacted with their favorite brands, let a friend in on the know, and purchased with the convenient push of a button. So what can we offer all these fidgety users right now? Probably more than you think.

Building an anywhere, anytime customer communication list

Similar to the way brands have grown and maintained CRM databases for emailing customers, brand managers are starting to leverage the immediacy and ubiquitous nature of mobile for new databases. Such databases have been popular for charting videos on MTV’s “Total Request Live,” and for driving customers into retail outlets to purchase products.

Consumers who sign up for email and even snail mail change addresses often. Due to number portability, consumers are rarely changing cell phone numbers. This means that mobile information is gaining tremendous value over other forms of identity.

P2P — Reach out and touch someone

Brand Strategy called last year’s launch of Elizabeth Arden’s Curious the most successful fragrance debut in the last five years. Tapping into the teen love affair with mobile phones, the company invited young consumers to submit their mobile phone numbers and a friend’s online to generate a voice message from pop idol Britney Spears, as well as information about the perfume launch. The promotion, which generated huge buzz and sales, shot Curious to the number one spot in U.S. department stores over the holiday season. Apparently Brittany had a lot more time to call people before she had her baby.

This P2P formula, because it allowed users to refer friends to the Curious campaign, created yet another layer of virtual distribution.

When two’s a crowd

Companies like McDonald’s are using interactive two-way text messaging and short code advertising as effective branding moves across all media. In its recent RUMAC text-in-to-win campaign, McDonald’s invited users to text in “Mac codes” printed on millions of Big Mac boxes nationwide for chances to win tickets to a House of Blues concert. During this campaign, according to AdAge, McDonald’s saw a three percent increase in Big Mac sales.

Shortcodes are sort of like website addresses for opt-in mobile campaigns. They are usually a five digit number like 12345 or word grouping like IPSH1 that correspond to numbers on the phone dialer.

Short codes can help companies measure the effectiveness of ads placed in traditional media. By featuring a short code in a commercial, a company can better assess the direct response of consumers by measuring how many texted in the featured short code for a chance to win cash and prizes.

Rock Txt-n’ Roll

Concert-goers at festivals are being offered unique prizes and giveaways directly to their cell phones. This summer, 30,000 music fans were offered a chance to win concert prizes at Lollapalooza, a large-scale touring festival in the United States featuring 60 artists performing on six stages. An astonishing 10 percent of the audience — that’s 3,000 people — participated in the “Txt-n’-Win” campaign. The increase in audience participation, compared with previous years, is a strong indication that people want to extend their concert-going experience beyond listening to their favorite artists — they want to play around with their cell phones.

Digital coupon book, scissors not required

Mobile users can also get discounts and coupons on everyday items without ever looking through their Sunday newspaper. Mcoupon, a coupon received through SMS that users can redeem at the cash register, eliminates the need to remember to clip or print a coupon, let alone remember to take it along. Case studies show that coupons retained on phones as text or bar codes realize up to a 10 percent redemption rate. One example is Capitol Records’ recording artist Chingy. Mobile coupons redeemed at Musicland (Sam Goody) locations nationwide for his new album, Powerballin’, realized a 10 percent return in February 2005.

In the store

Imagine texting in a UPC code for any product in a retail store and receiving real-time price comparisons, mobile coupons and recipes in grocery stores. Stop imagining, it’s happening right now!

No more lines at the movies

Another creative and effective tool for mobile users to try, and for marketers to drive up sales, is direct purchases via mobile phones. This direct purchase technique has successfully driven ticket sales for movies. Before a movie’s release, ad banners and movie websites invite users to sign up to receive show times and alerts. On the day of the release, all registered users receive a text message, which contains show times for their local movie theater as well as the option to purchase tickets from resellers such as Fandango. Users can also hear a short movie promo message. This technique is also highly effective for concerts and live events. Fans can sign up to receive alerts for their favorite band and potentially purchase tickets before they go on sale to the general public.

Mobisodes coming to a small screen near you

With live TV streaming starting to trickle in on select phones (Verizon’s VCAST), we sometimes lose sight of the fact that we can already send mass video to cell phones in what are called Mobisodes — 15- to 30-second video clips sent to a handset from a website or in response to a short code.

Innovation works best with integration

The most successful mobile campaigns include integration with the mobile shortcode into print, online and broadcast. This strategy lets companies create a “surround sound” marketing environment that showcases their product in multiple media outlets, creating both visibility and interactivity.

The payoff for mastering the mix-media technique has already proven to be enormous. Users are getting hooked and texting in to offers online, at concerts, on radio, TV and billboards. One can only imagine what more is in store for 2006.

Nihal Mehta is founder and CEO of ipsh!, a mobile marketing “boutique” that has successfully implemented over 400 innovative campaigns in the United States since its inception in June 2001. ipsh! clients include Kellogg, Reebok, HBO, SONY, BMG, EMI, A&E, Nokia, Budweiser, Warner Bros, FOX, ABC, Dunkin’ Donuts, Johnson & Johnson, K-Mart, and Universal.

DMO’s chief marketing officer believes online travel companies with global growth and revenue strategies should target emerging markets and populations.

The online travel industry and multicultural marketing

PhoCusWright’s “Online Travel Overview: Market Size and Forecasts 2004-2006″ estimates that the travel industry will see greater growth in 2006 than in previous years. Online travel will see its share of this growing industry rise, as well. As a result, PhoCusWright predicts that 2006 will see one-third of all U.S. travel booked online, up from 20 percent in 2003 and 15 percent in 2002.

Within the travel market, we’re seeing the level of interest, and money, being invested in U.S. ethnic markets exploding. The census data has been important in validating the size and potential (and high growth rates) of U.S. ethnic markets. Where before a major brand may have tactically implemented ethnic marketing on a local level, it will now target those markets on the national level and invest in longer-term brand marketing as well as tactical campaigns.

As travel marketers try to target ethnic and international markets, many turn to the internet. More traditional brand marketers are asking for the creation of websites to reach these audiences. On June 30, 2004, Southwest Airlines launched a Spanish-language booking site that targets the 39 million U.S. Hispanics.

Continental Airlines’ Spanish website

Like Southwest, Continental Airlines has recently announced a partnership with Idiom Technologies — a leading independent provider of scalable software solutions for accelerating and optimizing globalization initiatives — to speed the launch of its Spanish language online reservations system.

According to Ken Penny, director of internet planning and general manager at continental.com, “Continental Airlines serves more destinations in Latin America than any other U.S. airline. Offering website services, like flight purchase and frequent flyer information, in Spanish facilitates the travel process for more of our customers in the United States and abroad. Recent surveys (such as the Roper Hispanic Cyberstudy released in early July 2005) indicate that U.S. Hispanics was the fastest growing online ethnic segment. Also, this ambition was consistent with Continental’s Latinization program, now in its eighth year, which enhances customer service for Latin American and U.S. Spanish-speaking passengers not just through language but in respecting cultural differences.

With the internet helping to create a truly global market, more and more businesses are realizing they need software like WorldServer to tap into this market and to reach customers who want to access information and make purchases in their native languages.

Dave Rosenblund, spokesperson for Idiom Technologies, stated, “The plan to launch a Spanish-language website came directly from the CEO of Continental, who laid out an extremely aggressive launch schedule. The overall goal was to more effectively target consumer and business travelers in multiple languages and locales. To complete this project, Continental needed globalization software that could quickly, easily and cost-effectively automate many of the manual processes involved with translation and localization. After evaluating various alternatives, WorldServer proved to be the ideal solution. Using WorldServer, they were able to translate key components of their online reservation system — including the flight booking and rewards system, along with billing, check-out and travel history features — and successfully get these customer-facing sites up and running within the allotted time.”

There is no uncertainty why Continental chose to pursue the U.S. Hispanic market.

The Direct Marketing Association recently released the 2005 Hispanic Market Report that highlighted three significant facts for marketers:

• U.S. Census projections indicate that the Hispanic population will triple to over 102 million by 2050.
• Hispanic-Americans are increasing in affluence and are among the most credit-worthy customers in the United States
• Hispanic-Americans have a purchasing power currently greater than 600 billion U.S. dollars and this is expected to grow to one trillion U.S. dollars by 2007.

According to Penny, ” With the growing Hispanic population in the United States, we’re seeing a real opportunity to reach more effectively the audience who prefers websites that provide Spanish-language content. The real challenge is to increase awareness of the Spanish language facilities of continental.com among Spanish speakers.”

Aggressively expanding Spanish language outreach to the U.S. Hispanic market, as well as to the Latin American market, is what will make companies such as Continental key players in the online travel space.

It is evident that online travel and online marketing opportunities are starting to explode in the U.S. Hispanic and Spanish-speaking verticals. Continental’s success can be attributed to its simple approach to website localization: mandate that all creative ideas be applicable across all communication channels and across different markets.

Elizabeth M. Lloyd is chief marketing officer of Dragon Media Online, Inc., a leading international marketing services company that has developed world-class, performance-driven online marketing solutions and best-of-breed email database management — all designed to monetize international and multicultural markets. Lloyd’s work on international online marketing has been highlighted in numerous publications as well as in academic curricula for MBA international marketing programs worldwide.

FEEDING THE CONSUMER BEAST, ONE MEDIA AT A TIME

Demanding Boomers, Multitasking Gen Yers Decide What, How and When

By Greg Lindsay Adage.com

Published: January 03, 2006

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Wayne and Tyna Donelson, 56 and 54, don’t have much time for most mass media. A married pair of small-business owners who work from home in rural Massachusetts, they subscribe to the local paper and a few magazines, rent DVDs voraciously and, thanks to Comcast’s video-on-demand package, watch yet another movie together every afternoon.

Photo: Paul Sakuma

“I don’t need anything else out there,” Ms. Donelson says.

Her daughter, Louisa, is more succinct. “F–k TV,” the 22-year-old senior at the Rhode Island School of Design says in her Friendster profile.

Louisa doesn’t have much time for other media either, unless you count her perpetual text messaging, wireless Web surfing and downloading torrents of music to her Apple iBook.

Redefining media usage
Although they aren’t aware of it, the Donelsons are helping redefine media usage each in his or her own, uniquely generational way. They’re unconsciously guided by the principles that PricewaterhouseCoopers claims will rattle the media landscape over the second half of the decade: They only want their media when they want it, how they want it and in whatever quantities they want it.

While Louisa’s boomer parents are reinventing Hollywood as a DVD factory, she and her friends in Generation Y are running traditional distribution channels through a blender, watching TV on iPods, discovering new music on MySpace.com and then texting each other about it on their cellphones.

Americans in 2006 will consume, on average, more than 9.5 hours of media daily and pay $888 in the course of the year for media options ranging from magazine subscriptions to DVDs, according to the forecast of Veronis Suhler Stevenson.

That breaks down to a media day devoted to about 4.3 hours of TV, 2.7 hours of radio and satellite radio, and roughly a half-hour each of the Internet, newspapers and music CDs. And we’ll still find time to watch DVDs, play video games, and read books and magazines, not to mention spend more minutes fiddling with our cellphones. By 2009, we’ll add another 10 minutes of media consumption a day, thanks to finely honed multitasking skills.

Less time with ad-backed media
By 2009, marketers will have increased their annual media support by $100 billion from 10 years earlier, according to Veronis Suhler. But this generous ad support won’t stop consumers from spending less time with ad-supported media. Consumer time spent with ad-backed outlets is expected to fall to 54.1% from 63.6% of their total media time.

In the first half of this decade, consumers increased their media spending at a faster rate than advertisers did, and they’ll keep spending long after the average American breaks the $1,000-a-year barrier in ’09.

Where’s the money headed? To Apple Computer’s iTunes Music Store, which maintains a viselike (70%) grip on the digital-music market with its 99-cent song downloads. To cellular carriers for $2.49 ringtones and video games. To video game makers Microsoft Corp. and Sony Corp. To satellite radio services like Sirius, Howard Stern’s new home as of this week. And not to mention broadband service providers.

There still will be a few ad-supported constants in this brave new media world — somehow, we’ll find the time to watch even more TV — but even the mass-est medium of all will bow to our whims, thanks to DVRs and video-on-demand.

There are presumed to be plenty of losers as well — anyone stuck burning CDs, for example, or publishing newspapers.

What’s driving the change behind the change? It’s too easy, and wrong, to chalk it up to “technological disruption.” (Microsoft’s WebTV was once disruptive, too.) Consumers already wanted control; right now, they’re embracing the media for which technology has finally made it an option.

‘Nation of control freaks’
“We’re becoming a nation of control freaks, and it’s all technology’s fault,” says trend watcher Michael Tchong, who points to the “ubertrend” of “time compression” as the culprit.

“Media companies need to start changing their models to adjust for this,” says Peter Winkler, marketing director in PricewaterhouseCoopers’s entertainment and media practice. “A lot is just experimentation” — witness the recent flurry of TV shows-on-your-iPod/PC/DVR announcements — “but we’re going to see more content on a pay-per-view basis, which in reality will become an ad-per-view basis. Consumers may not pay for much of that content themselves, but they’ll accept the ads.”

Time Warner’s America Online is betting exactly that with its new ad-supported streaming video channel In2TV. That may be one tactic for marketers to get back into the game, but they shouldn’t stress themselves out over the technology.

For technology isn’t the common factor shared by the media that Veronis Suhler and others have anointed the winners — interactive TV and wireless content, home-video options like DVDs, video games, digital cable and the Internet. Demography is.

Reshaped by two generations
The media landscape of the next five years will be reshaped by the whims of Gen Y and their boomer parents (while Gen Xers, as always, will be overshadowed by the two).

The youngest generation will be the focus of technological innovation, while the boomers may prove to be a wild card for no- or slow-growth media increasingly written off by advertisers because of their aging audiences.

Boomers represent “a huge segment, they’ve been treated specially their whole lives, and they have lots and lots of money to spend,” says Mike Hess, director-global research and consumer insights at Omnicom Group’s OMD, New York.

And how is all of this likely to play out? Well, Gen Y already comprises the bulk of all text-message senders and ringtone downloaders, despite owning the fewest cellphones of any generation. They’re inveterate video-gamers, causing young men to begin abandoning movies, TV and magazines for pixilated worlds at home and forcing marketers to chase them there.

And Gen Y’s tendency to hang out at virtual clubhouses like MySpace and Flickr — where they produce their own blogs, share photos and invent a parallel universe of their content — is propelling Internet ad growth at a 20% annual clip. (Thus explaining
the $580 million News Corp. paid for MySpace owner Intermix Media.)

Mom and Dad reinvent Hollywood
Gen Y’s parents, meanwhile, are staying home to watch movies. They’re behind the reinvention of Hollywood’s business model as a giant DVD machine and causing the collapse of the theatrical window (because they can’t be bothered to head to the theaters). They’re the target customers of the telcos and cable companies racing to bundle every conceivable service.

Boomers’ coming to grips with mortality was the reason that religion was the fastest-growing book segment in 2004. (Who do you think bought 25 million copies of “The Purpose-Driven Life”?)

And, as it happens, boomers play games, too. Electronic Arts, with its $680 million acquisition of cellphone-game maker Jamdat, is positioned to pursue the swarms who while away the hours playing games like poker on their computers and handsets.

One might muster a million examples to show why demography is destiny when it comes to media usage this decade. The surging number of Gen Y Hispanics even underlies the recent boom in newspapers and magazines aimed at the ethnic group.

Mr. Tchong is correct when he declares “technology has spoiled the consumer and made it into a beast looking for customization.” The media challenge will be figuring out exactly how America’s youngest and aging members want to be fed.