The company I work for is among the top3 consumer packaged goods juggernauts - some look at us as the best in the world at what we do ... Had a series of conferences at HQ last week where one of my colleagues gave a tremendous 45min recap of how our business/customers/consumers have changed - as we continue to migrate from a boomer-oriented marketplace (us "old-timers") to a landscape driven by Millennials... The change in the past ten years is STUNNING, and like it or not - these stinkin' Milennials are now driving the bus... Suddenly all of the goofy decisions and changes we've made as a company, and all of the new products and innovation (much of which I roll my eyes at) makes sense... And, I was immediately proud of my company and its senior- leadership (whom I have been critical of on many occasions) for identifying these trends,knowing it, owning it and modeling behaviors and the business accordingly. Now it's clear that, as a company, we are poised to kick serious ass all over the world. Then i thought about all of the game-day experience changes the pinheads in the PSU athletic dept made (piped-in music, hokey social-media call-outs, mega video boards, force-fed/non-organic gameday "traditions" etc etc etc) and suddenly it occurred to me that they, too, get it.
When demlion posts about looking around your tailgate and taking a moment to carefully note the people and how they look different now, the changes around you - he's not all loopy on bath salts. The Athletic Dept appears to have done that homework quite some time ago. Among these effects is that Millennials just won't show up for gameday as fans like me and my fellow alums would... Again - acknowledging that i have evolved into a "geddoffamylawn" late-boomer, any chance i thought there was to get rid of the piped in music et al is nil. That said - I'm still stubborn enough to think the answer in attendence woes lies in On-field success, affordability, OOC attractiveness (season ticket holders especially), pain-in-the-assiness of gameday traffic/ticketing/policies/ingress... Alas , the athletic dept has its work cut out for it in a world where us old fogies (i am less than 50) reduce the # of games we are prepared to attend...