By Shari Storm
These are my three daughters. They are five, three, and one.
They are your future members.
Let me tell you a little bit about their lives.
They’ve never watched a television that they can’t fast-forward, re-wind or pause. They never watch commercials--not because I don’t let them, but because they are annoyed by them. They listen to music on satellite radio or from an iPod. Yesterday I sang, “A is for Apple. J is for Jacks” at breakfast and they could not believe I had seen a commercial enough times to memorize it. They asked me why I didn’t fast-forward through commercials when I was little, like they do.
Nobody in our neighborhood walks to school. Kids don’t roam the streets on their bikes. Both parents work and social activities are highly orchestrated and organized. Our extended family lives all over the world. Their sense of community is on line. We send YouTube videos to their cousins. We track friends and family through Facebook. They play with their Webkinz. I know all about their classmates’ food allergies, adoption endeavors and pending foreclosures. The moms talk with one another just like my mom talked to my friends’ moms back in the '70s, only we’ve never met in person. We chat on line. Our connection is through the computer.
My kids are the first generation to have immediate access to the Internet. They are the first set of people who will grow up carrying the Internet in their hands. Last week I called to make haircut appointments for them and I got a recording that FunKutz had gone out of business. My five-year-old asked me why and my three-year-old said, “Ask the computer.” Sure enough, three minutes later I learned that the owner was sellingthe business for $30,000 so she could go back to school.
I can tell you with conviction that the consumer you will be trying to attract in 10 years is:
ignoring traditional media; spending most of their time in social media sites; and convinced the Internet is the authority on all topics and is accustomed to uninterupted access to it.
Last month I spoke at Net.Finance. The topic they gave me was “Why Your Company Cannot Afford to Ignore Social Media Any Longer." I began my presentation with the story of my three daughters and ended it with one question, “What are you doing right now to position yourself as the FI that they will choose?”
Shari Storm is VP/chief marketing officer for Verity Credit Union, Seattle, and a CUES member. She is also an author. Her first book, Motherhood Is the New MBA: Using Your Parenting Skills to Be a Better Boss, will be released Sept. 29, 2009. Read her Motherhood is the New MBA blog in the meantime.
