https://www.thegroundwork.com Chicago / 215 W Superior Superior Street, Suite 500 / (312) 448-7569
MILLENNIAL BRANDING PROSPECTUS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: THE MILLENNIAL PROBLEM As the first decade of the new ne w millennium comes of age we are seeing a rising demographic that has become disillusioned with the political and economic framework that has been beneficial to progressive party machines for over a hundred h undred years. Young people despite being be ing debt-yoked and indoctrinated with racial and class guilt are entitled, Internet addicted, and focused on instant gratification. In order to retain control of this emergent voting bloc, progressive institutions will need to exploit their current situation by providing a service economy that will both meet their th eir unrealistic standards for work-ethic (i.e. super-flexible workplaces, flat management structures, zero-dress-code, checking social media as a time-chart activity, etc.) and provide an unskilled workforce with sufficient income to continue consumption (without providing an actual sense of security). Specifically, young people can be assessed for value based on three dimensions (physical appearance, social media capital, and influencer-index score) and then make available their most valuable asset to client corporations: their skin. MILLENNIAL BRANDING Millennial Branding will be the use of markers ranging from press-on tattoos (1-2 days) to henna markings (2-4 weeks) to actual subdermal tattoos (permanent) and even, for urban-environments, actual scarification branding (permanent, extremely painful) to display corporate logos in return for income based on the visibility and activities of the young person in question. A public rating scale will be used to “grade” all involved parties and th e rating of the subject will determine which brands are available and where on the body the y must be placed or displayed. Activities will range from simply being seen in public (low) to performing public works (low-caste millennials will be rewarded for activities such as trash collection while higher-caste millennials can gain points / payment for dancing at exclusive clubs or engaging e ngaging in approved political activities).
As subjects psychologically / emotionally buy in to the program, p rogram, they will be offered personal “enhancers” (reduced cost gym memberships, nutritional supplements, skin-care cosmetics, social media coaching, etc.) on credit. So long as they maintain active work in the system, their debt-load will be delayed, creating a strong inducement to continue with the program. pr ogram. Additional digitals channels will be used to provide psychological reinforcement in the forms of intermittent rewards, emergency calls-to-action, and soforth.
POLITICAL-ECONOMIC GOALS OF MILLENNIAL BRANDING In the current economic climate, the th e ability to debt-yoke young people with educational loans may be sunsetting. Already political pressure has grown to allow discharge of student loans or to opt out of the post-primary educational process altogether. As this behavior grows, it becomes imperative to provide an alternative economy that will maintain credibility with the next generations to come. The goal of the Millennial Branding initiative is to create an outlet for economic engagement that will provide psychological reinforcement while, at the same time, dampening idealism and maintaining social stratification and division amongst the net-new voters. This will work as a superficial layer of consumer-capitalism with a “th ermocline” that hides an underlying centralized-economic structure. As this matures in the new millennium, young people will come to accept debt-driven behavior as the new normal, even after the projected collapse of the higher education bubble. It will also create a stable foundation of under-class (see Tiering) that will act as a basis for Basket Of Crabs patterning.
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TARGET CONSUMERS Target consumers are any Americans under the age of 30. Ideally those with: 1. High college or otherwise debt-loads and without a STEM degree 2. Social-Media / Internet addicted & entitled youths 1 3. Politically active young people who resent capitalist politics Under 25 Years Old
Over 25 Years Old
Can be Interrupted by an Electronic Message During sex
11%
6%
Can be interrupted by a message during a meal
49%
27%
Answer electronic messages in the bathroom
24%
12%
Report Depression if Isolated from Social Media
33%
2%
Out of Work College Kids: 13.8% Kids: 13.8% of 18 to 29 year olds with bachelors or master’s degrees in non-STEM fields. Positive Impact of Debt on Young Adults: While Adults: While not desirable in the typical sense, in terms t erms of encouraging engagement in the consumer economy, econom y, debt is a powerful emotional driver2:
27% of respondents say they find it difficult to buy daily necessities because o f debt 63% have said their debt affected their ability to make larger purposes such as a car 73% have said they have put off saving for retirements or other investments
Unengaged in Corporate Capitalism: Millennials, Capitalism: Millennials, and Generation Z behind them, are less and less engaged in corporate capitalism than Generation X. Millennial M illennial Branding will recapture this demographic before they can be fully integrated into an alternative political movement. Risk Profile3: These behaviors constitute WARNING SIGNS.
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Only 25% of millennials are fully engaged customers. Only 29% of millennial workers are engaged in their jobs. 44% of millennials are independent (compared to 37% of o f Gen-X, 32% of baby boomers, and 26% of traditionalists)
http://www.techaddiction.ca/facebook-addiction-statistics.html http://www.techaddiction.ca/facebook-addiction-statistics.html http://www.asa.org/site/assets/files/3793/life_delayed.pd http ://www.asa.org/site/assets/files/3793/life_delayed.pdff 3 http://www.gallup.com/businessjournal/191435/millennials-work-life.aspx http://www.gallup.com/businessjournal/191435/millennials-work-lif e.aspx 2
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PSYCHOLOGICAL / ECONOMIC DRIVERS FOR MILLENNIAL BRANDING In order to re-establish control over net-new voters it is imperative to circumscribe their world-view and their economic habits. In order to be fully effective: 1. The initiative must establish stratifications among voters. If class / race l ines are less successful than in the past, new divisions such as social media capital, brand-identity, and physical attractiveness can be created. 2. The work must be demeaning. Millennials greatly gre atly resent traditional entry-level jobs and as such are disengaging from them at a remarkable rate. The Millennial Branding initiative will provide a somewhat demeaning (and, depending on the avenue sought, potentially uncomfortable or even painful) environment for young non-STEM workers. Th is will be necessary for reducing idealism and activist political engagement. 3. Feeding addiction. The initiative will be psychologically structured so as to maximize addictive markers (Intermittent reinforcement, social shame / approval, etc.). Combined with digital channels, this may even create a secondary profitable market in treating addiction. MILLENNIAL BRANDING STRATIFICATIONS Millennials will be stratified on 3 dimensions: 1. Physical Appearance (on a 1-7 point scale) 2. Social Media Power (a 1-10 point rating) 3. Influencer Index (a 1-5point scale) By tying the three dimensions together and providing a public assessment, the scaling will create immediate “markets” in desirability. Mergers (dating, being seen together) will have immediate pay-off or risks based on the tracking algorithm. As such, score-conscious consumers will be induced to stratify into approved layers. This will allow for social influence (if an organization is proving problematic, by lowering the scores of some of the participants, others can be induced to leave or minimize their involvement).
Counterintuitiviely, Body Shaming Works Well for Self-Improvement Branding
The immediate feedback in the form of alerts of danger to one’s score (or potential increase) can encourage hypergamy and discourage endogamy among the stratifications.
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Basic Stratifications Internal Name
Ranking
Notes
Brahmana
Highest
The most desirable brands, the least degrading placement for logos, and the most mo st enjoyable activities (dancing, drinking, being seen attending events, live-streaming outings, etc.). The Brahmana B rahmana rank will suffer the most risk from hypogamy.
Kshatriya
High
More desirable brands but with more prominent placement (the face). Promoted activities will be public service in leadership roles. Loses some from hypogamy.
Vaishya
Medium
Less desirable brands, more humiliating placement. Activities that are boring or mildly unpleasant (working unpaid as an intern, acting as an unpaid host in a downscale restaurant, etc.)
Shudra
Low
Least desirable brands, most humiliating placement. Promoted activities will be things such as performing community service (refuse collection, street cleaning, etc.). They will gain the least from hypergamy and association with Shudra (including simply being tagged on social media near a a Shudra) will have negative impacts on the higher stratifications.
DEMEANING WORK In order to be fully psychologically impactful, the workeffort must produce payment while providing p roviding no sense of fulfillment and creating negative dignity. With the exception of the uppermost stratifications, the workefforts and the branding placements will be used to reduce self-esteem and thus lower inclinations towards idealism or activism. The resentment by-product will be channeled against lower stratifications and rivals. The result of this, over time, will be a return to a traditional work ethic where young people understand that they are to submit to the system in order to advance in it. FEEDING ADDICTION Key to the success su ccess of Millennial Branding will be the digital channel. Smartphone applications will allow consumers to validate activities (check in, post selfies, etc.). They will issue alerts and warnings (such as being seen with a Shudra stratified person). A slot-machine style intermittent reinforcement
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mechanism will be built in to each new brand acquired so as to encourage as much branding as possible. These scores can be converted directly into mone tary pay-out accessed through the application. As the application will collate and score social media interactions, the activities of millennials can be carefully tracked and data-mined. If, for example, a millennial is supporting a non-preferred candidate, their score can be impacted, thus deterring dete rring the activity. This capability combined with deep-learning artificial intelligence monitoring will provide us with extraordinary insight and control into the coming generations. FINAL WORD Opportunities for generational capture are few and far between (see: missed opportunity with the Minecraft property). In order to fully exploit the current decay in social conditions and trust in the institutions of democracy and capitalism, we must move quickly before some other agency fills the gap. Young people today are uniquely vulnerable to be shaped into productive consumers and an initiative such as this one (or similar) will be necessary to realize the potential promise.
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