While I enjoyed reading your rant defending millenials, I can’t help but feel the need to correct you on a few things.

1.) Slingshot is in no way associated with the advertising agency David and Goliath, Inc. beyond it’s web address which I believe existed prior to the David and Goliath agency. So there was never any ‘rebranding’ going on.

2.) Slingshot has always been an interactive agency, not a traditional agency. They have done traditional work in the past, but only in the last 3-5 years have they stepped up that portion of their business.

3.) Slingshot and Mr. Hannay have always been supporters of the youth in our industry. The agency has always been known as a great place to work for young people.

4.) Slingshot has always been about pushing to the edges of what is technologically possible and has won many awards for innovation in the new media sector. (Reference DFWIMA.org > EIMA)

f you walk around the halls of their building you’ll almost think that you’re on a college campus. Only in the last few years has the support for millenials started to shrink. This is due mainly to massive growth in numbers of employees, slowing of the economy, and unexpected market forces. Some bad eggs were recruited straight out of college and had a negative impact on the agency which left a bad taste in the mouths of the company leadership and has caused them to re-examine their somewhat “loose” hiring practices. I honestly believe that the author of the article took many of Owen’s statements out of context and over-embellished the truth of what he was really trying to say. I believe inside Mr. Hannay does believe in Millenials and wants to work with them, but has a bad taste left in his mouth from a few bad eggs who hurt the company’s business.

To be honest, there are a lot of kids out there with the entitlement mentality who believe that they are OWED a job just because they graduated from college. Many of these kids have never had to really work for something in their whole lives and have sticker shock when they get into the real world. I believe that this is due to our overly politically correct and pampered society.

And yes, I am a millenial myself. And no, I do not work for Slingshot.

Thank you for your post!

Thanks for your thoughts. Yep, it’s all about knowing how to motivate millenials. As for mass media, I understand it takes a combination of mass media & participatory media to make a campaign work. The difference is that the mass media supports the participatory media. For most agencies and people with marketing experience, mass media tends to be the star. That’s a mistake.

Funny how it was Facebook that got Larissa’s attention, not a TV ad. Speaks volumes on millenial’s media habits.

By the way, I don’t play hockey or listen to Rush (or live in an igloo).

I believe in the essence of your blog, that mass media is being displaced by new media, but I should clarify a few assumptions about the Young & Free campaign. To launch the product and to kick off the spokesperson search we did lean on many forms of marketing including radio, outdoor and banner ads. In fact, it was a Facebook ad that got Larissa’s attention.

But now that we have our spokesperson, there is no traditional media support until next year’s spokesperson search starts up again the fall.

Say hi to Kat for me!

Tom Humes