Should We Really Be Crossing Devices?

by H. E. James , Columnist, June 15, 2016

Marketing professionals today spend a lot of time thinking about how to market to America’s biggest demographic: Millennials. Why? Because, as noted in this resource from the University of Southern California’s Online Master of Applied Psychology Program, there are nearly 88 million of them compared to not quite 84 million Generation Xers and not even 70 million Baby Boomers. This focus is also necessary because those 87.5 million Millennials typically interface with brands on more than one device.

Shopify’s Nick Winkler reported that 60% of multi-device users reported using two to three devices. With numbers like this, it’s no wonder that cross-device marketing has reached such a high level of importance. Yet, should it? Are marketers missing their targets and doing a disservice to those targets at the same time? What about to their clients?

Wrong Cohort

Most products and services are marketed as wants rather than needs. They are for discretionary income, and marketers think that they should market to Millennials to spend huge chunks of discretionary income. They have multiple devices; why not lots of income to burn? Yet as Albert Luk wrote for Engage:Boomers, Baby Boomers are the ones spending more.

Consumers over the age of 50 have more discretionary income to spend and do so online and on their mobile phones. Luk points out, however, that advertisers spent 500 percent more to market to Millennials, targeting the wrong cohort.

Dumbing Down

Just as cross-device marketing is impelling us as marketers to target the wrong demographic, is it not compelling us to be dumber? Writer and marketer Maria Lally wrote in The Telegraph in 2015 that, because of her multi-device use, she was unable to spend more than three minutes on one task before bouncing to the next.

Is it safe to assume, then, that the more devices a consumer has, the dumber he or she might be? Not necessarily. It does depend on the devices. Smartphones, the number one platform for social engagement of any kind, is the device that seems to be contributing to lowering test scores among students and shortening attention spans. These youngsters are the target demographic. If they can’t spend more than a minute or two on one platform before flipping to another, what happens?

Lack of Engagement

What happens is clients’ products and services aren’t being engaged with by their target demographics. Clients today want to engage long-term with their customers, yet marketers are gearing their messages to multiple platforms. To do so, that means one cookie cutter message that can be scaled up or down to fit the platform.

Customer engagement marketing, the most effective means of creating long-term loyalty, means crafting personalized messages for customers and prospects. This goes against the very grain of cross-device marketing. Online customers want personalization in this world of the impersonal digital marketplace. Marketers can give it to them by ditching a cross-device strategy.

3 comments about "Should We Really Be Crossing Devices?".

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Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics Inc, June 15, 2016 at 12:18 p.m.
Sorry, but I still can't buy the claim that advertisers spend 500% more targeting millennials than all other groups combined. That certainly isn't remotely close to the truth for any of the "legacy media", including TV, and I doubt that it's valid for digital, either. Were I an ad agency strategist I would hope and pray that my clients' competitors bought into the concept that they should focus totally or almost so on millennials---in which case my clients would mop up the floor with them.
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H. E. James from Freelance replied, June 15, 2016 at 12:48 p.m.

Thank you for making a great point, Ed, especially regarding legacy media. As to the statistic itself, I would ask the author of the cited research for clarification.

Troy Lambert from Troy Lambert LLC, June 15, 2016 at 1:04 p.m.

Hey Ed, Thanks for the comment, but the advertising spend is not what the article is about. It is about whether or not we should be crossing devices. Luk's stats may or may not be right, but it simply states what he feels is happening, not whether this author feels that is valid or a good idea.

Since Millenials rarely engage with Legacy Media such as TV, for those industries to spend money on trying to appeal to millennials would be foolish. However, in the digital world, it makes a lot more sense. But again, this article addresses cross-platform issues, not how or where ad money is being spent, and on reaching who. How do you feel about crossing devices? Good idea or bad?