Well, Sarge, we’ve been poring over this case day and night trying to make some sense of it. After the evidence we fished out of the reservoir and the latest reports from the boys in the lab, we finally have a profile coming together: our killer appears to be a millennial.
We estimate that he’s between the ages of 18-35, always connected to his mobile device, and often builds his sense of social identity through the brands he consumes. He’s progress-focused, optimistic, and expects opportunities to just open up for him based on merit. He wants to get more done in less time, whether it’s buying tickets for an Arcade Fire concert or disposing of three quickly putrefying bodies.
I know what you’re thinking: we can’t just go around the city arresting any high school graduate with an iPhone and FOMO. But Vasquez here came up with a plan that’s so bat-shit crazy, it might just work. See, originally, we thought we were after a guy who was a passive participant in conversations with brands, but, boy, were we wrong. This sick bastard loves to engage actively with brands if they approach him in an authentic fashion. He’s hungry for content and what’s new. He doesn’t have time for print, television, or the desperate pleas of his hapless victims.
So we start creating content that feels authentically shareable—vines, photos, longreads, whatever. It’s all gotta speak to his interests as an always-on, social-focused doer/maker who might work as a barista during the day but spends his evenings following his true passion of DIY electronics.
Sure, I know, then we have a bunch of content, but how the hell is that gonna nab us the most vicious serial killer seen in our metro area since the 1970s? Simple: we aggregate all of this content in an immersive, media-rich microsite. HTML5, music, real-time tweets, the whole nine yards. Then we go and send one of our guys out to buy some sponsored posts on Facebook promoting the microsite. Get a few of the perp’s friends to like it, then all of a sudden, he’s seeing it all over his feed, until one day the homicidal sonofabitch clicks one and there he is, right on our doorstep.
Of course we can drop a cookie on the bastard right then and there, but what do we have then other than his rough geolocation and a few key metrics about his browsing habits? Nah, we don’t stop there. Here’s the beautiful part: on our microsite we offer “exclusive content” for visitors who log in with Facebook. What’s the content? Fuck if I know. Vasquez was thinking it’s just some minor celebrity’s new music video or a desktop wallpaper for a Netflix original series. Point is, our perp goes for the exclusive content, logs in with Facebook, and BAM! We’ve got permission to see his full name, his birthday, and his recent likes.
We’re confident we can get this millennial jagoff behind bars within a week. Vasquez already has a little boutique agency working on the shareable content. We’ll have mocks on your desk by noon tomorrow.