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Doing the Wave

Back in the early 1980, there was a cheer made popular by University of Michigan students during their football games. Entire sections of students would stand and cheer while raising their hands, sit down, and then the next section would do the same thing. The effect was what looked like waves of people moving throughout the stadium. This gave a great visual effect and engaged the crowd every time that it started. Wave leaders would get a couple of the most raucous student sections (usually those including the band) and after a few tries, the rest of the sections would pick up on the wave and it would take off through the stadium.

The Wave grew very popular after it caught on during Detroit Tigers games as they won the world championship in 1984. By that point, everyone in America had learned the Wave, and it became common at sporting events. By 1986, the Wave was being done at the World Cup and it became a global phenomenon.

The reason that the Wave was popular is the same reason that the Internet has spawned so many popular memes. A meme is an action that spreads throughout a society. In the Internet age, most “memes” are Internet phenomenons that have users joining strange activities, just to be part of the crowd. Flash mobs were “the” meme a few years ago. During the 2012 London Olympics, it seemed like every athletic team in the world went online and did the same dance to the Carly Rae Jepsen song “Call me Maybe”. And recently, the Internet has lit up with tens of thousands of videos of people copying a jump-cut YouTube video done by a group of Queensland, Australia teenagers to the song “Harlem Shake”.

So why? People like to stand out from the crowd. But more importantly, they like to be part of the crowd. In a new world where relationships are created and maintained online, these bonding experiences are important. Memes are way in which a virtual Waves can be created online. It allows people to participate in crowd will not even leaving the safety of their computer.

I am a close observer of the crowdfunding space. Memes are proof that the power of crowds is the coming attraction of Web 3.0. Marketing is not about messaging anymore. It is about engaging. And soon businesses are going to have to learn to leverage the latest memes to ride the newest virtual Waves.

The University of Michigan does the “advanced” wave. Counter-clockwise twice, once in slow motion, once at double speed, once clockwise and then split into two counter-waves. Don’t try this at home!

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Jonathan Frutkin is an attorney at The Frutkin Law Firm, PLC in Phoenix, AZ. He’s written a new book called “Equity Crowdfunding: Transforming Customers into Loyal Owners” which will be published in May, 2013.

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Fall into the Gap

One of trickiest marketing challenges is to understand the gap between people that are 30 years old or younger, and the folks that are 50 years old or older. Back in the 1980’s, the clothing store The Gap ran an iconic television campaign with the slogan (and catchy song) “Fall into the Gap”. The people who remember that ad, like me, fall into both worlds.

If you are 30 years old or younger, you probably don’t have a landline telephone and may not have cable television service – you use Netlix and Hulu. You may have a number of things in your house, but one of them is most definitely high-speed Internet service. You use your mobile phone frequently. You are well trained on the ways to communicate using emoticons and acronyms. And there is some chance that you’re reading this article.

Contrast about with someone who is 50 years old plus. You probably have Internet. You probably don’t know which speed your Internet is – you just know that it is the cheapest option you could select from your cable provider. You probably have a smart phone, but you mostly use it for making telephone calls. You might also use the calendar feature. When you out with your friends, you couldn’t imagine “checking in”, or sending a picture to the world on Instagram. In short, the world you live in has changed, but only around the edges.

But that leaves an important gap. How do you market to the people in between? You know – the 30 to 50 year olds. A smart marketer will understand that these gappers. The gappers don’t know quite how to use social media, but they try. These people use Facebook to maintain relationships, but they are almost with people that they met in the real world. The gappers watch TV still, but they will occasionally be found watching YouTube.

Defining the age that is going to make up your target market is critical. A younger demographic requires a marketer to embrace social media and develop a deeper relationship with followers who are likely to share their habits with their online network. An older demographic still responds to traditional advertising which uses classic marketing positioning like sloganeering and sales. The middle group responds to a little of both.

But remember what you’re trying to do. In many cases the medium is the message.  

Don’t Fall into the Gap with Run-D.M.C. – http://youtu.be/yoleRFfAwMs

 

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Jonathan Frutkin is an attorney at The Frutkin Law Firm, PLC in Phoenix, AZ. He’s written a new book called “Equity Crowdfunding: Transforming Customers into Loyal Owners” which will be published in May, 2013.

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Crowdfunding for Small Business

I have heard a consistent criticism of JOBS Act compliant equity crowdfunding. The argument is that for most businesses, the ability to merely raise one million dollars over the course of 12 months is insufficient for a business to meet its growth goals. There could be nothing further from the truth.

There are two targets for crowdfunding. The first is the one that is promoted by people far and wide. That belief is that crowdfunding is for startup companies. In my opinion, crowdfunding is, generally speaking, the worst way that a startup company can raise money. I’m sure that will be the subject of a future blog or two. There are so many things that come from the mentorship a startup receives when money comes from an angel investor or venture capital firm, and the increases in awareness and presales of products are not sufficient to overcome this advantage.

However, the other target for the crowdfunded business model is the small business. You know, the one that has somewhere between 5 to 50 employees. It does between one million to ten million dollars in revenue a year. And it needs additional capital in order to support business growth. The hundreds of thousands in profit a year is more than sufficient to satisfy the needs of Crowdfunded investors to receive a return on their investment.

The idea that there aren’t that many of these types of companies is absolutely absurd. In fact, most of the new jobs in this country are created by exactly this type of company. According to the Small Business Administration, already half the American private sector workforce works for these companies, and they are now creating 65% of all new jobs. There are a host of people who run these businesses, and they would be delighted to learn that there will soon be a new way to them to raise capital.

It would be a large mistake to discount the people who run these types of businesses. They are the ones that are going to truly improve the American economy. And crowdfunding is a great opportunity for them.

 

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Jonathan Frutkin is an attorney at The Frutkin Law Firm, PLC in Phoenix, AZ. He’s written a new book called “Equity Crowdfunding: Transforming Customers into Loyal Owners” which will be published in May, 2013.

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