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DIGITAL DIVIDE

Can you hear me now?

growing chasm exists between Brunswick’s talent combined with a disengaged workforce; , a fundamental difference in mike stakeholders who haven’t even heard your message, the way they communicate, especially when krempasky let alone agree with it; investors, analysts and capital A it comes to Millennials. The warning signs markets that no longer rely on information you and karl for businesses are clear: banks are investing in provide directly. wiseman making their call centers more efficient, ignoring discuss the that 71 percent of Millennials would “rather go to “WHAT WE’VE GOT HERE IS FAILURE the dentist” than listen to what their bank is saying, TO COMMUNICATE” * according to Scratch, a consulting business owned between Generational divides are hardly new. From values to by Viacom. generations, beliefs, fashion to music, politics to prose, there has Such a disconnect will prove increasingly and how long been a gap between old and young. That gap is expensive. By 2017, Millennials will spend more businesses can often most visible when it comes to the emergence than $200 billion annually and make up a growing begin to bridge and adoption of communication . The portion of a company’s customers, employees, the chasm telegram, telephone and all enjoyed their investors and analysts. Even in the regulatory arena share of early adopters and resistant skeptics. their impact is tremendous; the average age of These dividing lines between adoption and Washington, DC congressional staff is under 30. resistance of new technology have long tracked the At best, businesses that fail to adapt to these divisions of generations: young people tend to adopt new realities will look old-fashioned or out of new and emerging channels; the wider population

touch. The worst case is dire: failure to recruit top follows later. What’s different today is that digital BARCZYK HANNA ILLUSTRATIONS:

34 brunswick review · issue 11 · 2017

DIGITAL DIVIDE media is evolving at an increasingly fast pace, and “Reverse from their than one of their favorite every is being simultaneously affected – applications. becoming more culturally distinct and isolated from mentoring” For businesses, this rift between generations those both younger and older. programs are is not simply about communications, human As Millennials adopt new channels, everyone else resources or even technology; it’s a critical business remains a step, or five, behind. With the exception no substitute issue that executives need to prioritize. of , there is increasingly minimal overlap for giving LEADERS SHOULD CONSIDER between the channels that different generations use 4 STEPS to connect and share ideas, thoughts and content. digital natives 1 Get some digital natives into your kitchen Even when they do use the same platforms, a seat at cabinet immediately “Reverse mentoring” younger generations are increasingly wary about programs are no substitute for giving digital the liabilities of creating a permanent (and often the strategy natives a seat at the strategy table and inviting public) digital record of their lives as they enter the table them to inform the decisions that will affect the workforce. This has made the Facebook timeline, or future of your company. The benefits of diversity a colorful archive, less attractive. in leadership teams are well known; age should That’s one reason video-chat platform Snapchat, be another consideration when convening with its self-deleting content and immediate representatives from across the business. They can connection, has captured extraordinary attention observe and understand changes that their older and loyalty as it prepares for a $25 billion public peers will struggle to see. offering. Likewise, a growing amount of social 2 Stop using your desktop When activity takes place within closed-group messaging planning or reviewing your content strategy, applications like WhatsApp. remember that a majority of web traffic now comes Changes in platform are also accompanied by from mobile devices and that desktop traffic has a shift in the content we consume. Quartz, the sharply declined over the last few years. These trends relatively new online business publication, often are both set to continue. Seeing your organization talks about the “Quartz curve,” whereby very short from that perspective will help you make decisions content and quite long content both do well on about how to reach your modern audiences. Ask the web, but the standard op-ed format of 500 to 800 words falls flat. This curve is repeated across other media: video content is consumed in bite- *“FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE” sized pieces of a few seconds or a few minutes on

Facebook and YouTube, and in massive hours-long ranked 11th on the american quantities during binge sessions on Netflix. Film Institute’s top 100 movie Amid these ongoing changes, the tried-and-true quotes of all time from American behaviors of business communications are under cinema, “What we’ve got here is great pressure. A recent survey from and failure to communicate” comes from the 1967 film Cool Hand SurveyMonkey found that a key quality 93 percent Luke, which was labeled by of Millennials looked for in an employer was that movie critic Roger Ebert as “anti- the company had the latest technology, including Establishment.” for internal communications. Presumably, the tools The plot features Paul Newman themselves were less important to these young job as Luke, a young convict who seekers than what they revealed about the company refuses to obey prison rules. The film’s most famous line was spoken progressive enough to adopt them. not by Luke, but by Captain, a In an area of rare alignment, generations are A still from the prison warden embodying false pretense and agreeing to consign voicemail to history. Companies movie Cool Hand menacing authority – the system Luke was such as JPMorgan are eliminating it entirely, Luke, moments rebelling against. The phrase gained currency as a and a Verizon executive estimates only a third of before Captain metaphor for the famous “” of the (raising baton) strikes 1960s, when the entered adulthood business phone lines even have voicemail capability, Luke, played by and began to challenge many of the priorities and according to a report on National Public Radio. Paul Newman, values of their parents. It should come as no surprise that a majority of and delivers the The quote has since appeared in a number Millennials in a recent study by LivePerson, a film’s most of movies, books, television shows and has even company that makes live chat software, said they memorable line served as a sample in a Guns N’ Roses song.

PHOTOGRAPH: MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES, GETTY ARCHIVES, OCHS MICHAEL PHOTOGRAPH: would rather lose the ability to make voice calls

brunswick review · issue 11 · 2017 35 Brunswick is an advisory firm specializing in critical issues and corporate relations DIGITAL DIVIDE www.brunswickgroup.com yourself “what can I learn – or not learn – about my company from its social channels alone?” SURFING THE GENERATIONS CHANNELS 3 Add digital layers to your communications A 2016 study by GlobalWebIndex, a firm, looked at the age profiles That is not to say you should replace anything right of popular websites and social platforms. Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube had away; different audiences will transition at different the largest percentage of users aged 55 to 64, while Snapchat had the highest speeds. has a Snapchat percentage of users under the age of 24 – more than 40 percent of its total users. channel, but it hasn’t eliminated its other channels. One thing all platforms and websites had in common: a majority of their users were 34120 years old or younger A better approach is to add new channels, one at a time, in ways that leverage existing investments in 100 content or infrastructure. 80 4 Create a communications R&D lab Your customers’ tastes evolve; invest in making sure 60 your products meet their changing needs and 40 desires. Likewise, establish and fund a permanent function that can explore and experiment with new 20 approaches to reach your corporate stakeholders. 0 mike krempasky is a Partner in Brunswick’s Washington, TUMBLR TWITTER WECHAT YOUTUBE LINKEDIN SNAPCHAT PINTEREST FACEBOOK DC office and leads the firm’s Digital offer.karl wiseman INSTAGRAM MESSENGER WHATSAPP is an Account Director in Brunswick’s London office. 16 24 25 34 35 44 45 54 55 64

WALLS WITHIN THE GLOBAL VILLAGE

Algorithms have turned the exchange of with little understanding or sympathy for the differences between generations, classes, ideas into a mirror for individual beliefs, opinions that may disagree with their own. religious beliefs, political and philosophical says Brunswick’s ronald schranz The personalized programming algorithms camps, and supporting the radicalization of that guide our choices online are one root disenfranchised groups. Siloed versions of in his 1964 book, understanding media, cause. These filters create an information reality reduce the potential for compromise Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan bubble around each person that is growing and increase pressures on social coherence, argued that the benefit of any successful in depth but narrowing dramatically in democracy and peace. innovation is accompanied by a dramatic, breadth. The resulting social network, To make matters worse, since the flow but usually overlooked, loss – an built of connections to people with similar of information online is a self-organizing “amputation,” to use his term, of some specialties, attitudes, beliefs and world system, there is no trusted authority to faculty that humans previously enjoyed. views, mostly reinforces each user’s pre- say whether or not information is factual. McLuhan foresaw the creation of the existing ideas. The , for all of its False information, propaganda, conspiracy internet and imagined it helping undo a diversity, has become an infinite collection of theories and deliberate attempts to obscure lot of the amputations and divisiveness mirrored rooms and echo chambers. are often ascribed the same credibility as of the past, facilitating humanity coming Far from creating global harmony, the reports diligently researched by serious together as a single in a “global internet as it exists now is helping fuel journalists, causing many to speculate about village.” In fact, the internet has given us greater social upheaval, including widening a “post-fact” age. huge advantages, including connectivity The older generation may lament the and near-total information – unlimited, decline of the , the radio shows real-time and ubiquitous. But in recent and the TV news programs they once relied years it has also aided the disappearance of on. But those outlets had their own biases the rich marketplace of discussion, where and carried their own, though very different, disagreements and foreign opinions may amputations that McLuhan warned of more be encountered and taken seriously, an than 50 years ago. amputation that is already having critical More worrying is that the younger repercussions around the world. generation, who hold the future of society in The mountain of information we now have their hands, might not be clear that the same at our fingertips allows us to find support technology today that has given us a bright for anything that we wish to believe, making vision for the future has caused us to leave it harder for individuals to share a common something important behind. definition for a problem or solution. Digital natives – Millennials and younger – are ronald schranz is Head of Brunswick’s particularly prone to this siloed worldview, Central and office in Vienna.

36 brunswick review · issue 11 · 2017