• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, September 5, 2018

Reading an onscreen graphic about President Trump giving Google a hard time about its search results, given the negative-sounding coverage about his administration, he blurted:

“What’s a google?” OK, he’s 91. He no longer has a computer or a mobile phone. But even when he did, he apparently didn’t know what Google was.

So any consumer marketing company looking to tap into my father’s needs -- a bathroom disinfectant, Keurig coffee pods from Walnart, or a new cheaply made toupee (Yes, at 91!) --  they’ll miss their chance. No targeting, retargeting, native advertising, or massive search engine optimization.

So where’s the value in this consumer? Probably not much for many big-ticket items. Lack of scale for targeting this consumer accounts determines much here.  

My father has had iPhones and an Android smartphone. But there was always some confusion in using these devices. Still, I wanted an update:

“Hey, Dad, do you have an iPhone, now?”  His response: “No, I gave up the typewriter years ago..." Then I couple of seconds later: "I think my batteries [for hearing aids] are dead.”

Good news: I can glean a number of potential consumer products from that sentence -- Duracell, an Amazon Echo, and perhaps ginseng biloba.

Let’s delve into some TV behavior. He loops in and out of many dramas, in massive binging spells of “Law & Order: SVU,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” But it’s mostly Netflix. And for vast stretches during these airings, he is sleeping.

When awake and on linear TV, he watches TV in bits and pieces. Flipping through channels, he’ll land on something -- in the middle of an episode. A commercial break pops up and he moves to another channel -- also in the middle of an episode.

My father has media distraction, and then some. Does this remind you of anyone? Younger people do get distracted as well. But they know Google, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and a bunch of popular digital media brands.

Down the line, those young consumers will get older. What will they be telling their kids 50 or 60 years from now about a new media brand they have never heard of?