Dad's Favorite (Only?) Game

Sing It, Fry

This past Saturday saw another college trip for the eldest -- the third this month, and the seventh of her process so far. She's getting serious about this, on a lot of levels, and it's honestly great to see. But the nuts and bolts of that isn't what I'm going to get into here. Instead, I'll use the experience to answer an age-old question for some casual observers of marketing and advertising, which is why the vast majority of pitches in our world are geared to dramatically younger audiences. But first, back to the college visit.

The trip this time was a 3-hour drive to a state with dramatically higher costs for gasoline, as well as a toll road to get there if you want to save about 15 to 20 minutes of time. As we were late getting out in the morning and had a hard stop of when we needed to get back, this was all part of my consideration set, because, well, every dollar we save is a dollar we've got to help with the college costs in a couple of years. And at this stage in my life, I just enjoy finding new ways to save money. It's a Dad Game, to be sure, but a game all the same.

Which meant that I bought just enough gas in the neighboring state to get back. Also, that we left in time on the trip back to take non-toll highways, which also allowed me to drive at more mileage-friendly speeds. When we did get back, I filled up at my local warehouse store, where the gas is a few cents cheaper and still good quality. That also gave me the chance to grab a handful of groceries that were also a deal. While also using the cashback credit card, which doesn't carry a balance, because, well, we're avoiding the finance charges. The warehouse store also has a cashback bonus, so we're kind of double-dipping on that. And so on, and so on. I stretch dollars now in ways that I never did when I was younger.

Which leads me to the point I wanted to make, and the one that has been an abiding mystery in many marketing and advertising circles. Namely, why is so much marketing fixated on younger and less demographically advantaged users, when the older folks are the ones, well, with the money?

In automotive advertising, it's particularly striking. The average new car buyer is in their early '40s. Up to then, most buy used or increasingly just avoid the expense. (Personally, I didn't buy a new car until that age as well.) So when you see ads for cars that are filled with millenials, it's something of a miss, but understandable from the standpoint of the prospects wanting to appear younger than they are, or building brand for the long term.

If you want to tell a nice story about this, it's because younger buyers are presumed to be highly impressionable, and you can more easily change their buying patterns. The not so nice story is that older consumers are, well, cheap, and aren't likely to adjust well to the new price levels for things; consider the not overwhelming cash you might have gotten in cards from your older relatives back in the day.

But for me, what it really comes down to is being able to say no to myself pretty easily, whether it's for drinking free office coffee over premium stuff, shifting to store brands over premiums, doing my due diligence for price checks, and so on, and so on.

Saying no to the kid, especially if she gets into a school that could have a dramatic impact on her future life and earning potential?

Well, being Dad means you can't always play the game you'd like to play...

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Feel free to comment, as well as like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, or email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at top right. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.

Your Expected Contribution

Help Me, Piggy

This past week saw two interesting and seemingly unrelated events in my life that are merging in my mind.

The first was an interesting exercise with my teams and HR department at the day job, with the promise and actual delivery of personal insights as to how we are all seen by co-workers, in terms of the kinds of energy, strategies and modes of working.

My natural way of thinking for this kind of thing is to compare it to horoscopes (why yes -- I am perceptive! That's so interesting and unique to the sub-set of people born in this month of the year!), and to disregard what is told as nothing I didn't already know... but when you get under the hood and really consider what is said, there was real value in the process and exercise. (There's also the relatively tender matter of how much of this you will want to share, and with who. Knowledge is power, after all. Not always nicely used power...)

What was intriguing to me wasn't the specific points, but how it jibes with what the day job expects. It's a different role than what I bring to consulting, or parenting, or being a husband. Limiting my energy to my known role may limit how I'm seen, and make it seem like I'm holding something back, and not delivering the full contribution.

Which leads me to Saturday's activity, which was taking my eldest daughter, a high school junior, to her fifth different college visit. (No need to specify which one, as I'm not sure it's going to be in her final consideration set, but it was a fine presentation and pitch.)

What was especially valuable in this session was the publicization of a calculator Web site that estimates your EFC -- expected family contribution -- for when your child gets accepted to a school. This number takes your tax return, assets and current financial situation to bear to determine the student's level of aid, .

It is, as you might imagine, a daunting and sobering number, no matter how long you have kept this goal in mind. Making this number isn't going to be easy, and might require some significant need to leave my comfort zone -- either through pushing the consulting billing to higher levels, doing more to step up monetization of content, cutting expenses in ways we haven't been willing to do, or maybe even just adding formal second and third jobs. Setting our child up for a lesser educational experience than what my wife and I were able to achieve is just a non-starter, and expecting our kid to just achieve all goals through aid packages or exceptional debt acceptance is similarly unacceptable.

For the moment, we've got time to make some moves, but not nearly as much as we used to. We know we're not alone in this concern, as it's kind of the signature worry of the age. Maybe political change might make the situation better, too, but again, not something you can count on.

Your expected contribution.

I had no idea that phrase could seem so loaded, really...

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Feel free to comment, as well as like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, or email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at top right. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.

Consulting With Teeth

Words To Consult By

My wife is many things; a mom, an instructor, and an unstoppable force. But what fuels all of that is curiosity. She wants to know how things work, how they could work better, and isn't afraid to ask. She also plays a harp, and has done so for decades.

(Don't worry, this is all leading to marketing and advertising later. Stay with me.)

So this weekend, with her main harp starting to act up with some minor aches and pains -- buzzing on a couple of strings, minor cosmetic issues, and some concerns over recent string breakage due to a faulty tuner -- we needed to bring it in for some TLC. Which put us in close contact with an extremely specialized consulting experience, which is the world of a harp regulator.

There probably aren't more than a few dozen people who are qualified to do this work in the entirety of the United States, honestly. The person we met and contracted to do the work on my wife's harp is a classically-trained musician who found herself in the field due to a chance encounter with the master craftsman who made harps for the most famous company in the field. She then received extensive training with the instrument, all the way down to a full deconstruction and re-assembly of an instrument that costs more than many cars on the road. A full-sized harp can have literally hundreds of distinct parts and pieces, and has strong mechanical pressure on it. It's far from a simple machine, and to find someone with the ear to know what they are doing, plus the patience to get the tech right, is a very rare combination.

Since my wife is also technically inclined, and finds how harps work to be fascinating, she then asked a question that I'm very familiar with, from my time as a marketing and advertising consultant. "Do you think I could learn how to do this myself?"

The question wasn't meant meant in malice, or to diminish the professionalism of the technician, or her skill set. It was just a question without an agenda. We also weren't trying to negotiate for price, or considering anything other than using the tech; her payday was in no jeopardy. But she answered it with the best and only possible answer, and it made me smile in the moment, and for hours afterward. (She also said it with a smile, which helped.)

"Well, yes, but it's not easy to get really good at it."

Which is the entire gist of experience, really, and always in the back of my mind when I help a client with copywriting, creative direction, design concepts and the like. Also, I suspect, in the back of the minds of the designers and coding techs that are part of the M&AD family. Sure, we could teach you how to do this work. But we can't teach you how to be, well, us. That takes experience, insight, access to data analytics, and maybe even talent. (Maybe.)

We can, and do, tell clients optimal practices. It's part of the gig in consulting, and especially with new prospects, you need to establish your bona fides. I'm also certain that we've been used for fishing expeditions where a prospect wasn't quite up front in their motivations for taking the call, and weren't ever going to use us for more than surface insights. It's an occupational hazard.

But if you want to do the same level of work that we do, with the same efficiency, turn time, etc.?

You pretty much have to be us.

Which is not easy. Not easy at all.

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Feel free to comment, as well as like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, or email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at top right. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.