My Kids Don’t Know What a Radio Is: Challenges of Marketing to Gen Z and Beyond

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DANNY: Hey, what’s up? This is Danny Gonzales with IndustrialSage. And so, for today, I thought I would try something a little bit different. I’m actually not at the studio. I’m at home with my podcast mic, and I am watching three of my four really cute kids…

I had an interesting…experience that happened last week. We were driving down the road and actually, I was trying to show them –my kids– IndustrialSage. We were listening on Spotify. If you actually, if you didn’t know that we’re on Spotify, we’re on Spotify, we’re on Stitcher, we’re on…We’ve been on iTunes forever, and a bunch of other podcasting sites. But anyways, I was out, we were going out to breakfast. We do that periodically, we call it our daddy–kid date…

So we had just gotten on Spotify, and so I wanted to share with the kids that we were on there. And so I was trying to explain to them like, “Hey, this is a show that we have!”

They don’t…I guess they don’t know what a podcast is. I mean…my oldest is seven and the youngest is four– I actually have a younger one but she wasn’t with me– and I thought, “Well, how do I best explain this in a way that they would understand?”

So I was like, “Oh, well, you know, Daddy has a…Daddy’s on the radio! Listen, listen to Daddy on the radio!”

And my oldest, my 7–year–old asked me a very deep question that really kind of set me back a little bit and make me feel…well, just for lack of better words, really old.

She said, “Dad…What’s a radio?”

And I thought, “Oh my gosh. How do we…how do they not know that?”

But you know, it got me thinking…I personally don’t listen to the radio very much anymore.

I’m listening to music through Spotify or iTunes or something through my phone, or listening to podcasts. And it’s not really…you know, if I’m listening to something at all, it’s coming through my phone for the most part, and it’s connected to my car; or it’s just off and we don’t use it.

So I thought that was very interesting, and it made me think that…as times change…we talked about this whole transition of the workforce, the millennials coming in… The people that are coming in after them, I think the “Z–nials,” or “Zen–ials,”…they’re growing up in a time where the internet has been in existence from the very beginning of their life.

I mean, for me as a millennial, an older millennial, you know the internet wasn’t a reality in my life until maybe I was a junior in high school.

I’d say maybe my freshman year I was like, “This is kind of interesting.” I mean, I remember in…earlier when I was probably in middle school, actually I remember when we got our first PC, and it was like really exciting! We could play games, And I started tinkering around with it, And I would break it all the time by accident.

…It was not something we completely knew well, versus these Znials, Zen–ials, or however you pronounce it, are growing up. I mean, that’s…they are entrenched with it.

And so I think the real…the story that we have there is that just the way that we go to market and the way that we present our message has to totally change, especially as these millennials and everyone else behind them, you know, gets into the workforce.

You know it totally is going to affect how we recruit them, how we market to them, how we sell.

How they engage with our content is all going to change. That’s changing very quickly, and it’s not just them. It’s us as well.

So anyways, I just wanted to share that quick funny little story, and just thinking…man. Didn’t know what a radio was. Crazy. Maybe I’m a bad father, am I a bad…? I don’t know.

So I’ve actually got three of them here, and I thought it’d be kind of fun to kind of interview them and see what’s going on. I’ve got my first little one here. Lucy, can you say hi?

You can’t say hi? Are you shy? Lucy is shy. How old are you? She is running away now. She is four, and she’s a little shy.

She’s very excited, because we are going on a daddy–daughter dance tonight. And so they’re going to…and just about now they’re going to go get ready and put their pretty dresses on, and we’re going to go…big smiles at me right now. You can’t see that, but big smiles. All right. So now my next over here is…what’s your name?

KOLBY:Kolby.

DANNY:Kolby! How old are you? Here, get close to the mic here.

KOLBY: Six!

DANNY: You’re six!…what do you want to be when you grow up?

KOLBY: Astronaut!

DANNY: He wants to be an astronaut. And it’s interesting…tell me, tell us about the video that you watched that told you like, what you need to do? Like what are some of the things you have to do to become an astronaut?

KOLBY: Be a pilot.

DANNY: You have to be a pilot, that’s one thing. What was something…What was the other thing?

KOLBY: Um…don’t watch TV very much.

DANNY: Don’t watch TV very much? OK that was interesting! I like this show! So this video that you saw, so where did you see the video?

KOLBY: With Mom.

DANNY: You saw it with Mom? Was it on TV, or…

KOLBY: It was on the big computer!

DANNY: Oh, on the big computer. OK. So now, there was something else that you needed to be, remember?

LUCY: Hi!

DANNY: There’s Lucy. She’s getting a little less shy. You needed to be a…there was a particular thing. Remember? Begins with an e? An engineer?

KOLBY: Yeah.

DANNY: Was that it? That’s somebody–

: A GOOD engineer!

DANNY: A good engineer, and what do you have to be good at to be an engineer?

KOLBY: Um…fix really good.

DANNY: You have to fix really good, and you have to be good in math, and all that stuff. So I thought that was interesting…

KOLBY: You have to go to space camp.

DANNY: Oh, and space camp, we’ve looked at space camp and he’s very excited about possibly doing that.

And so Kolby’s been very excited about a lot of the different videos and things that we produce when you see all the manufacturing facilities, the material handling solutions and industrial automation solutions with all the robots and all the really cool things that are going on. I show him, and “Ooh!” You know, he gets all really excited.

And you know I have to say…I’m not sure what that video was that came out there. But it…I’m just, I’m really thankful for that kind of content that’s going out there that is really going to spur a lot of inspiration, and a lot of…I guess just putting the thought in the kids.

If you talk about the challenge that we have, with you know with talent and recruiting people into the field that…

Sometimes people think that manufacturing is dirty, or boring…but getting exposed to all the amazing things that are happening in the industry, looking at all the digital transformation that’s happening, all the, you know, Industry 4.0, like all the things that are happening…having kids exposed to that is great.

I’m super excited that, you know, little Kolby over here is kind of excited about these; already thinking about maybe being an engineer because he’s watching some of these videos and this content. And you know, that’s awesome. And that starts you know, that starts at a young age–

KOLBY: And I have to be nine to go to space camp and fix robots!

DANNY: And he has to be nine, if you’ve got that, to go to space camp. So we’ll see what happens in three years from now if Kolby gets to go to space camp.

So…All right. Lucy’s back here. Are you going to say hi, Lucy? You’re not going to say hi? Okay now she’s shy again. And last but not least –out of three of the four, anyways– I’ve got Ava. Ava, why don’t you come over here? Come over on this side…now, how old are you, Ava?

AVA: Seven.

DANNY: Now what grade are you in?

AVA: First grade.

DANNY: First grade. What’s your favorite subject?

AVA: Math.

DANNY: Math. Really? I didn’t know that! Why is that your favorite? Why is that your favorite subject?

AVA: Uh…because it’s really easy.

DANNY: Oh, it’s really easy. Are you going to be an engineer? No? What do you want to be when you grow up?

AVA: A artist.

DANNY: An artist!? Don’t be an artist like your father.

LUCY: And me!

DANNY: There’s no money in that! I’m just playing, I’m totally playing with you: and you’re going to be an artist too? What kind of an artist do you want to be?

AVA: Uh, I don’t know yet.

DANNY: You don’t know?

LUCY: I’m gonna be the same thing as her!

DANNY: You’ll be the same thing as her? An artist?

KOLBY: Oh, I have a– actually, I’m gonna, actually, I’m going to be a paleontologist.

DANNY: A paleontologist! He’s gonna be a paleontologist…what does a paleontologist do?

KOLBY: Uh…you study.

DANNY: They study…what? What do they dig for and look and study?

KOLBY:Dinosaurs!

DANNY:Dinosaurs. So dinosaurs and an astronaut. Very cool. We’ve got an artist, what kind of art do you want…are you going to do?

AVA: Uh…everything!

DANNY: Everything, so paint, draw…?

LUCY: I wanna do everything!

AVA: I’ve never tried sculpture before.

DANNY: You haven’t tried sculpture? Yeah, we should try that. I don’t know where she got that from. She did not get that from me. I am not good drawing or doing really anything with my hands. [laughs] So okay, yeah…it’s changing.

These are the faces of tomorrow. These are the hires that are going to happen in 20 years. That’s going to happen super fast. And again, it’s interesting just the way that people, you know consume things. We talked about here, another thing: we don’t have TV!

These kids…haven’t really watched live TV.

AVA: What is that?

DANNY: Yeah…you don’t know what live TV is too much, because we really don’t have it…What do you watch when you want to watch a movie? Where do you go?

AVA: Netflix.

DANNY: You go to Netflix. And when mommy wants to buy something…in a computer, where does she go first?

AVA: Um…she goes on the computer.

DANNY:Yeah, well…typically it would be Amazon and I’m really glad she doesn’t know that yet because, you know, Daddys got to protect the credit card. So…

LUCY:Hiii!

DANNY: All right. Okay. Well, I think that’s it, guys.

KIDS: Byyye!

DANNY: Alright, bye! Hey, thanks so much for listening. Again, this is Danny Gonzales with IndustrialSage.

We’d love to answer your digital marketing questions, this was a little bit of a different episode that we wanted to have in here today. Just kind of sharing the thoughts of the generation that is to come.

If you have any questions about digital marketing or sales, sales enablement, anything like that, ecommerce…we’d love to answer them!

If you’re listening on any of, you know, iTunes or Spotify or Stitcher or TuneIn or any of the other 3 podcasting stations out there, We’d love a review. Please engage with us online. If you are not on our email list, I highly recommend and ask you to get on the subscription list!

We’ve got amazing content that we’re putting out all the time: episodes and content that you’re not hearing on the podcast as well, things like our Insights Report where we talked to over 150 manufacturers about what they’re doing to really change in terms of sales and marketing and the trends for 2019.

Thanks for listening. I’m Danny Gonzales, and this is IndustrialSage. Bye!

KIDS: Bye!

 

 

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