Do your customers think they own your brand? The days of control are behind us. The brands that will win in this new landscape are those whose base of operations lie not in control but in leadership. This is brand democracy at work.
We’ve got to get it into our heads that youth don’t wake up thinking about our brands. Think about Facebook photos… it’s human nature.
The only brands they’re going to care about are the stories in which they can see themselves.
The above slide is a quote from Peter Van Stolk on engaging youth through empowering them to take control. Where is your department of great ideas? Chances are it’s out there – in the field.
Youth creativity can be endless – just ask Myspace about how they’re hoping to reinvent themselves. Give you the canvas and they’ll create the right message for your brand (see Beaterator, Converse, Element Skateboards and this example on creative writing).
The key here is giving them the tools – the platform on which to find their voice. Even though the concept that “youth today” are more engaged in entrepreneurial activities that the previous generation is largely a pop-myth, the entrepreneurial spirit is as strong as ever.
Crowdsourcing is more than a simple product development adjunct to your company – it is the marketing strategy. The Jones Soda example above illustrates that simple low-tech products are as primed for crowdsourcing youth creativity as are high tech innovations such as mobile based derivatives.
The problem with crowdsourcing today is it’s being run by the creatives as a funky extension to an ad campaign to help them win prizes at Cannes rather than a robust internalization within the client brand of the need for ongoing integration between product development and marketing. That’s why most crowdsourcing today is the superficial implementation of “crowdsourcing the advert” or crowdsourcing existing products through new media. Hmmm… It’s no different from the days when we treated the internet as brochureware – new media but business as usual.
Creatives will still pitch the product. Few will have the forward thinking nous to be able to think cyclical – where innovation drives marketing communication drives innovation.
The other half of the problem is that we’re still talking about “listening”! Youth don’t want to be listened to… let’s get that straight. Not everybody has something to say. Youth want a dialogue. Dialogue lends itself well to partnering on addressing collective problems such as which brand messages resonate with youth or how do we make our products more “green”?
When Jones worked, it worked because Peter Van Stolk played the fine balancing act between brand democracy and leadership. Youth don’t want “open house brands”, nor do they want the Pepsi generation model. Youth want brands – like Threadless – to both set the tone and then facilitate the dialogue.
Free Download: 100 Key Trends in Youth Mobile Culture
Sign up to the mobileYouth newsletter and you will also get the 4 Part PDF Free (Note: each section is full-color, high resolution, 9MB in size). Our trends newsletter delivers the latest insights straight to your email box. Written every week by our resident best-selling mobileYouth authors. Never miss a trend in youth mobile culture again. Unsubscribe any time.
