Have you noticed how "You" is everywhere? First, You posted your own videos on YouTube. Then You were Time's Person of the Year. Next, You were producing SuperBowl commercials for Doritos. And now, You performed live at the Grammy's with Justin Timberlake.
When did You become so popular? Last week Fuqua hosted a Marketing Conference, where many of the panel discussions focused around consumer-generated media. On one hand, companies like Frito Lay (the maker of Doritos) love this stuff, because they are able to accurately target their market and truly understand this demographic. And it's super cheap. On the other hand, are we going a little overboard? Now I see that Jeep is partnering with Marvel comics, encouraging people to create a comic centered around a new Jeep product. Are we getting an overdose of You?
And when did this trend start, anyway? I guess it could be traced back to blogs, where people finally had a way of voicing their opinion and really getting the attention of big business. And then it mushroomed when people had the chance to visually show their creative sides, courtesy of YouTube. But I think it started long before blogs.
My theory points the finger at reality TV and, specifically, Survivor. Being the mother of all reality TV shows, Survivor was the first chance to give real people, You and Me, a chance at 15 minutes of fame. We tuned in each week to watch ourselves compete for a tiki torch. And as more seasons were bought, it wasn't uncommon for us to know someone who knew someone who went to school with one of the Survivor contestants. Which made the show all that more real to us.
And slowly, through Darwin's natural selection, we've evolved from Survivor to American Idol to blogs to YouTube to SuperBowl to Grammy's. Surely, You will start to either die out, or continue to morph into the next great thing. Maybe it should be We.
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