Summer’s Here! Take An American Field Trip!

The pollsters are shifting into high gear this year.

It’s an election year. And in today’s electronic age, what more can we expect?

The press seems to have a hay day with it. Not that I have regularly tracked all the editorials, newscasts and prime time commentaries, but from what I have been exposed to, I think the press actually believes more of what they talk about than the true reality of the race.

The cover of this past week’s edition of Newsweek ran with the title, “Exclusive Excerpt: The Post-American World.”

The article is titled: “The Rise of the Rest.” The author of the article is Fareed Zakaria.

Ok.

The article starts off noting, “a new poll revealed that 81% of the American people believe that the country is on the wrong track.” – note “wrong tracks” is in quotes.

It then goes on to say…”In the 25 years that the pollsters have asked this question, last month’s response was by far the most negative.”

Interesting use of the phrase “by far the most negative.”

The article highlights the great marvels taking place in the rest of the world while the US sits back doing little to contribute.

“The world’s tallest building is in Taipei, and will soon be in Dubai. The largest publicly traded company is in Beijing. The largest refinery is in India. The largest passenger airplane is built in Europe. The largest investment fund is in Abu Dhabi. The biggest movie industry is Bollywood, not Hollywood.”

The article continues with a whole other set of the biggest, largest and tallest features found elsewhere around the world.

Isn’t it interesting how the press seems to be hell-bent on painting its picture of the American landscape?

Today is Sunday.

Starting last Thursday, I got into my car and drove off of the Interstates on some of the back-roads. And I was taken back by a couple of things I saw.

On Thursday, I stopped off at a small gas station to get gas and it turned out to be full-service.

An older man came out and walked around to the driver’s side window of my car and asked what type of gas I wanted and how much.

I told him to fill it up and away he went. He washed the windows and asked me if my oil was okay.

Wow!

When I went in to pay the bill, I ran into the owner of the gas station. It was a woman that was probably in her early 30s.

I asked her what the drive was behind the station and this is what she said…

“People today need more personal service. I made a decision to find older folks who remember what service is all about. Older folks that could also use a few more dollars in their wallets. Especially now with the cost of gasoline, we have to generate a value-add to the gas we sell.”

Pretty cool.

On Friday morning, after driving for about an hour, I decided I had to get a cup of coffee at a McDonald’s that was in near an outlet mall.

As I drove up to the front of the store, I realized that the parking lot was jam-packed full. Cars, trucks and SUVs filling the lot and parking on the lawn.

Upon entering the store, I saw people both sitting around all the tables as well as standing up together talking. And there in the middle of it all was a five-person bluegrass band complete with banjo, guitars, mandolin and bass.

A live bluegrass band at a McDonald’s!

I met the store manager. He was in his late-20s.

The store manager went on to say that they had a band perform about a year ago and it was a hit. Last summer, the band came in once a month. Then, at the urging of its customers, the band increased its sessions to twice a month in the fall.

Since February, the band plays for about an hour every Friday morning and the same people keep coming back and bringing in more and more of their friends.

Pretty cool grassroots event marketing!

A lot of colleges are holding graduations this week.

The individuals graduating are the very peak of the Millenniums or Generation Y – a group of 71 million teens and 20-somethings that are driving a political showdown with their Boomer adversaries as I write this!

This morning, I ran into just-graduated college Millenniums at the local grocery store. They were in buying a punch of Red Bull to celebrate.

Besides their graduation, what else were they celebrating?

They went on to share how they each were planning to start up new companies…one that was around computer gaming, another one in the website design business, another in eco-friendly landscaping and another in organic plastics.

Wow.

In my Generational Marketing presentation, I lead into the Millenniums section with a quote from American Demographics...

“Weaned on computers, consumer electronics and the high-octane programming of MTV, the Millenniums have shorter attention spans, stimulation overload, chronic boredom and even attention deficit disorder.”

Probably right.

Newsweek Magazine and CNN have great reach among the Boomers, but really bad reach among the Millenniums.

And that’s probably good.

Fareed Zakaria, the author of the Newsweek article is a graduate of both Harvard and Yale. According to his bio, he has traveled the world and lives with his wife and kids in New York.

Isn’t that nice.

The Generation Xers and the Baby Boomers really cannot grapple with just what is happening as the Millenniums emerge.

My perspective?

Tell your boss you have to take a field trip and won’t be coming in to work for the day. Then get in your car and go for a drive. Get out from the artificial urban cityscapes and go mingle among the people.

The MBAs call it “grass-roots marketing”… I like the phrase “tokin’ on the grass-roots.”

There are a lot of cool things happening that we need to embrace!

Just remember this…

• College degrees from the fancy schools make nice wall hangings.

• Bollywood might be nice, but with over 55,000 new videos posted every day on YouTube and more than 100 million plays a day, I don’t think that it or Hollywood is where the action is.

• The last I heard, the Malls are has-beens.

• Biggest, largest and tallest are similar word terms used in the Viagra Email blasts I get.

Fareed…loosen up!

Go put on a pair of those Adidas, text message your sweetheart on that iPhone, grab lunch at an In-and-Out Burger, go shop at Target and then grab a Ben & Jerry’s to snack on while you and your Avatar connect with other Millenniums to chat about the next Bluegrass group to download as the hottest of the ring-tones!