OMG, the whining that goes on in the ad industry about the Millenials. I’m so amazed (not in a good way) about this article from the Dallas Morning News titled “Millenials Need to Get Real About Work,” that I’m interrupting my little series on the future of energy. Whirling electrons can wait for a moment.

Owen Hannay, 45, principal of Slingshot LLC, has given up hiring millenials because they can’t take the heat in his agency. May I suggest what he’s really done is stopped hiring grunts until they’re mollified by someone else. Much of advertising is notoriously low paid grunt work, especially at the intro level. Then, after 15 years of scratching to the top for a title and a liveable wage, people in advertising become hardened and complain about those “young kids that aren’t willing to pay their dues.” They’re baffled why they can’t retain them. From the young people’s point of view, they have more choices at 23 than their Gen-X elders did at that age. So, when it’s not entirely clear that the company they work for has any room for them, why stick around? Why be loyal to a company if it’s clear the company is not going to be loyal to you? Ad agencies seem to forget that it’s a two way street. Note to agencies: you’re no longer the coolest game in town and if you continue to act that way, you’ll be left with only trust fund kids and “must hires” working for you.

One look at Slingshot’s portfolio and it’s clear that they’re a traditional shop albeit rebranded from “David and Goliath”. Or, as my friend Dr. Neal Burns likes to say, “The best advertising around, if you’re still in the 1980′s.” Hey Owen, the world’s changed, even if you and your clients haven’t. Get out from behind the focus group two-way mirror and go talk to some real people where they live. May I suggest starting with an interview I did with Neil Howe (the guy who coined the term “The Millinials”) for backgrond?

Then, maybe, just maybe, your shop might be able to approach the brilliance of something like Young and Free Alberta, that is, if you can actually fathom talking with–instead of talking at–people. So pull up a chair, Mr. Hannay, and learn how to market to millenials. From a Credit Union, of all things! And a Canadian one at that! You may think Canadians just play hockey and listen to Rush, Owen, but having just visited Vancouver and Calgary and spoken with “new media” types, I can tell you they are your competition and they are formidable.

First, I have to thank my friend Katherine Jones of Milkshake Media who turned me on to Young and Free Alberta. You may know her work–Milkshake Media came up with “Live Strong.” Yes, that “Live Strong“. She’s got a fine sense of judgement.

Seems as if this credit union wanted to target 25 & unders, the same people you refuse to hire, Owen. They wanted them to open accounts with their credit union. Did they get an ad agency to do a TV campaign? No.

Did they get an ad agency to do a print campaign? No.

Banner ads? No.

Keyword buys? No.

Outdoor? No.

Radio? No.

What they did, Owen, is run a contest for a spokesperson. And the spokesperson they found was 19 year old Larissa Walkiw from St. Albert, Alberta, Canada. (I’ll leave it as an exercise for you, Owen, to figure out where that is without having to walk over to the bookshelf to crack open an atlas.)

Here’s Larissa’s video application:



Is she dynamite, or what? So, Common Wealth Credit Union hired her. (Owen, you can find the video on Youtube where the marketing person from Common Wealth Credit Union goes to her house to tell her she’s won the contest. That’s y-o-u as in “you”, t-u-b-e, as in that thing you normally put your commercials on, ‘dot c-o-m’ which is short for “commercial” as in ‘commerce’ not ‘TV commercial,’ in case you were confused.) Then, they gave her a camera, a computer (something different, Owen, than HAL from “2001: A Space Oddessy”, or those things that look like big tape machines from “Dr. No”), and a car and said, “go forth and blog, vlog, and communicate!”. Here, she explains the difference between a Credit Union and a Bank.

Part One:

Is that amazing, or what? I’ll leave it as my little homage to Alternate Reality Games for you to find Part Two on your own, Owen.

Note that Larissa is:

• real
• talented
• comfortable with all forms of communication (video, writing, drawing, etc.)
• comfortable with all forms of interactivity (blogs, Facebook, youtube, etc.)
• able to take direction (think she knew much about banking before she landed this gig?)
• friendly
• outgoing
• communicative

and — shocker — a millenial! Those crazy kids, if only we could figure them out!

From this, Commonwealth Credit Union has generated lots of PR, lots of discussion, and lots of links. Larissa is a little phenomenon. Maybe in a future blog post, I’ll interview the credit union and see if they can tell me their results. But the point to take away for now, Owen, is that you need to change YOUR thinking if you want to get the most out of the younger generation. Start now, class is in session everywhere on the Internet.