Articles by Ashley Leone
Blog Archive
Integrating Digital and Physical Media Drives Success with Millennials and Gen Z
It’s no mystery why brands want to market to millennials and Gen Z consumers. The U.S. alone is home to approximately 87.5 million millennials (born 1981-1996). That sounds impressive—until you learn that the latter Gen Z (born 1996-2012) is the largest generation in American history, making up 27% of the population. Together, the two generations hold $165 billion in purchasing power.
Why Brands Shouldn’t Ignore Social Media for Customer Service
Several months ago, after a heavy rainfall, 11 units and four hallways at my condo flooded from a fallen hallway pipe. The building management held a meeting about the flooding. They revealed that the building’s insurance was not going to pay for the water damage. People stood up from their chairs. Yelling ensued. Everyone wanted […]
Are you “Woke” to Slang? (and why those who know what “woke” means think that’s a bad blog title)
Not too long ago, my younger sister and I were talking to our dad when he grumbled something about us being “woke.” We looked at each other and telepathically decided in a way that only sisters can that our father had no idea what “woke” meant. In a weird parent-child freaky-Friday reversal, we asked him […]
People Don’t Like Work Email – Is It Time to Re-Evaluate How Employees Communicate?
We’ve talked before about how millennials have been labeled lethal when it comes to trends, industries, and established norms. Add one more to the list that you wouldn’t expect: the work email. This past week, The New York Times published an article whose title posed the question: Could Gen Z Free the World from Email?
Selling Insurance to Millennials Requires Education and a Personal Connection
This past year, I had to buy home insurance, and I wasn’t the only millennial in the market. There are approximately 73 million millennials in the U.S. Of that number, 80% own a car, 45% own a house, and an additional 78% plan to buy a house in the next nine years. That’s a lot […]
Why I Actually Like Informed Delivery, And Why You Would Too
My brother, The Oldest And The Wisest of the Leone siblings, was recently telling me about all the preparations he was making to move to Puerto Rico. Since he doesn’t yet have a permanent address and is still keeping his residence in Minnesota, I—The Sibling Who Cares Most About Coupons—asked what he was going to […]
Authenticity and Transparency Are Key When Connecting with Millennials and Gen Z
Consider what millennials and Gen Zers spent their formative years witnessing: 9/11, stock market crashes, economic recessions, mass unemployment, global warming and climate change, and other none-too-pleasant events and worst-case scenarios. Oh, and a global pandemic, though classifying that as a “formative years” event—even for Gen Z—may be a bit generous. This has led to […]
Match Your Holiday Marketing Efforts to the Moment
Every year around Halloween, the Leone family gets together for Spooky Dinner. It all stems from past Halloweens when the Leone children were living at home and ate my mom’s halloweenies (pigs in a blanket) before trick-or-treating. My parents decorate their house and everyone arrives in costumes and brings a Halloween themed dish to share. […]
Mail is for Memories
There’s nothing like a human connection. We can survive not being able to go to movies or eat out at restaurants; we can muddle through distance learning and working remotely. It’s another thing entirely to survive being deprived of human interaction. It’s a weird revelation that’s come out of the pandemic—for all our advancements in […]
Why Marketers Should Stress Over Addressing Recipients of Their Offers
Not too long ago, I talked about how to address formal mail properly for the 21st century. At the end of the post, I attempted to soften the hundreds of words of etiquette by saying that even if you don’t get it totally right, it’s the effort and thought that counts.
