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- All Subjects: Culture
- Creators: Department of Marketing
- Creators: Department of Psychology
From exploring coffee plantations with an old Irishman in the mountains of Colombia to watching the sun set over the Strait of Gibraltar from the terrace of an ancient Moroccan cafe, this thesis sent Charles and Zane on an elaborate cafe-crawl across ten countries, with stops at a few of the world’s most interesting coffee houses. Some of these cafes, such as the world-renowned Caffé Florian (opened in 1720) and Caffé Greco (1760), are built on long-standing traditions. Others are led by innovators championing high-quality boutique shops, challenging mass production chains such as Starbucks and Tim Hortons. These newer cafes fuel a movement classified as the “Third Wave”. With a foundation gained from specialized courses with Patrick O’Malley, North America’s leading voice in coffee, Zane and Charles conducted first-hand research into the unique coffee preferences of multiple cultures, the emergence and impact of the Third Wave in these countries, and what the future may hold for coffee lovers.
Before creating a campaign targeting Millennials, this thesis first identifies which consumers belong in the Millennial demographic. The definition given looks beyond the ‘age 18-34’ demographic information and analyzes the generation’s unique characteristics, their feelings of being misunderstood by businesses, the importance of social media and technology in their world, and what motivates them to take action.
The subsequent case studies examine the advertising tactics of Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, the burgeoning social news and entertainment website BuzzFeed, and Beats by Dre headphones. Each of these brands successfully captured the Gen Y demographic group, with an emphasis on the younger end of the 18-34 age spectrum, and effectively communicated their understanding of Millennials’ culture. Each of the three campaigns contained social or digital elements to create engaging and relevant content for the niche of younger Millennials. Immediately following the case studies, best practices are outlined to summarize the findings.
Finally, a digital campaign is proposed for Bose headphones. The literature review, case studies, and best practices contributed to the culminating campaign, which will allow Bose to reach the younger Millennial audience.
Meanwhile, digital is still being defined, as countless people work to determine best practices and reconcile the unending amount of information available into something that can be used. Trends in digital include the concept of new media, blogging, social media and new channels of media. Overall, we are seeing a shift to user-‐ generated content, available all the time, and a proliferation of content being created and published on the Web.
Some of the ways these two industries are colliding include the rise of lifestyle bloggers, developments and usage of technology, an abundance of new e-‐commerce models, and finally, a shift in the ways consumers curate and discover products online.
Predictions for the future include a more streamlined and user-‐friendly process for search and product discovery online, increase in social commerce and personalization of products, and finally, a return to brick and mortar shopping, but with an improved, experiential model. These trends will affect industry stakeholders dramatically, and so necessary actions for these stakeholders are also discussed, such as allocating more resources to content generation and e-‐commerce, giving consumers the ability to personalize, and improving their physical shopping experiences to provide something valuable and entertaining.