The 250 Square Foot View

I’ve never seen Star Wars.

(My friends dragged me to The Phantom Menace in 1999, which I mostly slept through, so I’m not counting that.)

So when my 5yo and I stopped by our 8yo neighbor’s Jedi-themed birthday party last week, we were not exactly the target audience.

They served “Yoda Soda” and “Wookie Cookies” and turned their backyard into a Jedi training facility, complete with light sabers made out of pool noodles and duct tape. It was very cute.

(My 5yo called it a “light saver,” also very cute.)

My son and I did some “target practice” with a NERF dart gun aimed at a pyramid made of white Solo cups with storm trooper faces glued to them. It was the first time he’s ever played with a toy gun of any kind.

At the end of the party, we were sent home with our own light saber (and one for his 2yo sister). After smacking the walls with his, my son was banished to the backyard, where he proceeded to fight an imaginary “Dark Vader.”

I’ve generally not been one to blame violent movies or video games for real violence in society. But, I can’t help but notice that a kid who was calling Starburst candy “Star Wars” last Halloween (adorable!) was now seemingly ready to go all-in on the franchise – starting with killing its biggest villain in our backyard.

Perhaps the real insight here for me as a parent isn’t the growing influence (and violence) of Star Wars – but the beginning of my slowly-but-surely shrinking influence with my child, who will be entering kindergarten in a few short months.

I’m learning as I go, and I’m willing to lean into my son’s interests – even Star Wars – but I’m not drinking any Yoda Soda!

I was bummed to see Nick Kyrgios knocked out of the 2022 US Open.

Besides the longshot bet I made on him to win it all (31 to 1), I was rooting for him after seeing how he played during Wimbledon en route to a defeat in the final to Novak Djokovic.

The knock on Nick has been his lack of commitment to his craft. He seemed content to coast through his career, travel the world, make a few bucks, and retire without having made his mark on the sport.

Normally no one would care except for the fact that, in my opinion, he is quite possibly the most physically gifted and talented player on the men’s tour.

But it seemed that something clicked at Wimbledon. Maybe he realized that he was good enough to play and beat anyone on any day if he committed himself fully. Not just during the matches, but the day-in, day-out fitness and preparation that it takes to win grand slam tournaments.

From the outside (I of course don’t know Nick), it seems that what clicked is that he cares now. He wants to win, and he’s willing to do what it takes to put himself in the best position to do so.

Though his reaction to losing last night (smashing his racquet to pieces) was not “gentlemanly,” I loved it, as I did his post-match comments where he talked about being devastated and letting the people around him down.

I thought this was the major where he made his run after blowing the #1 seed, Daniil Medvedev, off the court – and looking like he knew he was the better player, maybe the best player in the world.

But maybe it’s next year, having sat with the devastation for an entire offseason ahead of his home major, the Australian Open.

My money’s on Nick to win a major in 2023. What about you?

The other night I played softball for the first time in about six weeks.

There was a time in my life when my whole week revolved around the two hours I played softball.

Nowadays, I can only get out to the late games that take place after my young kids’ bedtime. And of course, I’m fine with that.

When I got out there, the game felt familiar but also different.

Our manager stuck me in at leadoff despite having missed so much time this season. I walked to start the game and came around to score.

When I trotted out to my familiar position, left centerfield, I got the sense that some of the newer guys on the team were questioning why this old guy who hasn’t been here in six weeks is taking up space in the outfield normally occupied by one of them.

But I reassured them I’d relinquish LCF next week when the schedule called for an early game.

I also recognized the zeal of the younger guys, which I used to have. One was advocating for crazy defensive shifts. Another was complaining that he was batting too low in the order. One guy was jawing with the opposing pitcher over nonsense.

I used to do all of those things; now I do (mostly) none of them.

It was good to get out there and contribute to a win. Being away made me appreciate it a little more. I’m not sure I “need” softball the way I used to, but I’m glad to know it’s still there when I do.

“These bangers are ruining pickleball!”

You might hear that sentiment in certain pickleball circles.

While pickleball is largely a finesse game – which is why it’s great for players of nearly any age, strength, or mobility – a new segment of players has emerged: Bangers.

These are ex-tennis players who’ve brought their hard-hitting style of play onto the much smaller pickleball court.

And not everyone welcomes this new style of play.

(Ironically, many tennis players scoff at pickleball, especially when they can’t find a local court because the pickleballers have already claimed them all.)

The recalcitrance toward bangers is understandable but ultimately unproductive. There is no “right” way to play any game (as long as no rules are being broken), so it’s up to traditionalists (non-bangers) to either figure out how to beat the bangers – or bang back.

In Major League Baseball, we’ve seen the predominance of The Shift, where the defense shifts over to one side of the field because the batter almost always hits it that way. The batters hate it because there’s less space to hit, but it’s not illegal.

MLB has decided after five years or so of this – during which batting averages have plummeted – players apparently aren’t capable of “hitting it where they ain’t,” so they’re outlawing The Shift next year for the good of the game.

But since you can’t outlaw how hard someone can hit a pickleball, the traditionalists will have to find another way.

If you think about The Shift another way, the defense may have thought it “unfair” that batters could hit it to the same part of the field every time and the field was simply too big to cover. So they made an adjustment.

Can pickleballers do the same?

I’ve been a bad Yankee fan this year.

This season I’ve watched, maybe, 2 innings a week. I have two young kids, and of all the things I could (should) spend my time doing, watching a baseball game for 3+ hours is pretty low on the list.

When I have watched, the game is increasingly unrecognizable from the one I grew up with. (Get off my lawn alert!) The game’s “three true outcomes,” walks, strikeouts, and home runs, aren’t all that interesting to me.

All season long, I’ve kept an eye on the box scores, hoping I’d start to feel something for a team that was once the center of my 16-year-old universe.

And then, on Saturday afternoon, it happened.

Over the last three years I’ve casually introduced baseball and the Yankees to my son. On Saturday, a meaningful 4 pm game against the Red Sox, we planned to wear our Yankee shirts and watch the game together (with my wife and infant daughter) after naptime.

The game was mostly ho-hum, and we skipped a few innings to eat dinner outside, before coming back inside to watch the last few innings before bedtime.

My son is obsessed with The Green Monster, the massive green-painted wall in left field of Fenway Park. So when Giancarlo Stanton crushed a 452-foot grand slam to give the Yankees the lead – a home run he literally hit out of the stadium – my son and I went nuts, high-fiving each other and my wife as we watched replay after replay.

Now I have my reason to root for the Yankees to make and go deep into the playoffs, maybe even win the World Series: to recreate that moment of excitement and connecting I shared with my family. What better reason could there be?

Editor’s note: This article was originally published on LinkedIn; but since I haven’t published anything on 250SFV in over a year, I’d figured I’d put it here, too–just in case anyone was wondering if I’m alive. (I am.) If the article sounds sales-y, you can literally blame it on my day job (I’m in sales).

Shortly after I turned 18, I received a package in the mail from Gillette.

Inside was a Mach 3 razor, Gillette’s newest model, equipped with a three-blade technology I’d heard about in their commercials.

I tossed aside the electric razor I’d been borrowing from my stepdad and, with my new state-of-the-art Mach 3 in hand, I began a regular shaving routine. And even as I experimented with a 5 o’clock shadow, unnecessarily long (and bushy) sideburns, and, in college, some awkward growth on my chin that led my family to start calling me Shaggy (from Scooby-Doo), I continued to re-up on Gillette replacement blades.

Over and over again. And I still use Gillette razors today.

By sending me one free razor when I turned 18, Gillette acquired me as a customer and established a pattern of behavior—regularly shaving, and rebuying their blades—that has lasted through my 36th birthday (earlier this year). I’ve been a Gillette customer for half my life.

If you’re tasked with customer acquisition for a company like Harry’s, a men’s shaving and grooming brand that launched in 2013 to challenge Big Razor, your job is to convince me to break an 18-year relationship with Gillette in favor of your brand, with which I’m barely familiar.

That’s not impossible, but it’s certainly not easy. And whether you’re Panera trying to lure casual diners away from McDonald’s, Under Armour trying to make a dent in Nike’s sales, or Lyft trying to keep pace with Uber, the earlier you can establish a relationship between your brand and a potential consumer, the easier it’ll be to acquire them as a customer.

As a sales guy for Ypulse, a youth research company that focuses on Generation Z (born 2001-2018) and Millennials (born 1982-2000), I’ve thought a lot about what made Gillette’s strategy to target me at age 18 so effective. They didn’t invent free trials or product samples. But what they figured out was just the right time to send me that razor: when I was young.

Presumably Gillette bought a database that included my name, address, and birthday, and waited until I entered the “Adults 18+” demographic to put their product into my hand (and on my face). Moreover, Gillette effectively cued me to start shaving more regularly because, after all, I now owned the best new razor on the market, with not one, not two, but three blades!

As a teenager I was open to messaging from razor brands because I hadn’t yet established a purchase pattern for that particular product category. (I was, ostensibly, just as open to messaging from shaving cream and aftershave brands.) I imagine the average 16- to 18-year-old in 2018 has not yet written his favorite razor brand in stone—but he’s probably seeing lots of targeted ads from Gillette, Harry’s, Dollar Shave Club, and any number of other brands. Whichever of those brands wins his business today will have a tremendous advantage—if they continue to provide a quality product at a competitive cost—leaving the others to play catch-up, like Harry’s is doing now with me.

In January 2018, Ypulse launched Ybrands, a brand tracker that surveys 6,000 young people (ages 13-36) a month, collecting data about their relationships with, and perceptions of, 150 brands across multiple product categories. In other words, Ybrands was built to tell our brand clients what young people think about them when it comes to their brands’ Personality, Relevance, Influence, and Momentum.

Ybrands is in-field continuously—conducting 200 interviews every single day—so yes, if a certain social media company or retailer or quick service restaurant catches hell in the press for a customer-facing miscue, our data will reflect the before-and-after of it. But more importantly, we can tell our clients where their brands stand with young people at this very moment, and which levers they need to move up or down to appeal to Generation Z and Millennials moving forward.

At 36 I’m not “old,” per say—Ypulse keeps me around as their resident O.A.M., old-ass Millennial—but I’m far less receptive to marketing messages than I used to be. While now might be the right time to tell me about your financial brand that will help me save for retirement, or your auto brand that will keep my child safe, it’ll be really tough to change my mind about which brands of running shoes (Saucony) or face wash (Kiehl’s) or jeans (Levi’s) I buy from now until I’m 100. Again: not impossible, but not easy, either.

What is your brand doing to establish a relationship with young consumers? Are young people familiar with your brand, and if so, do they think it’s true to itself, or that helps them express who they are? Ybrands can help you start to address these questions today, so you’re not playing catch-up tomorrow.