Unlike the previous disaffected generation who were ultimately resigned to the fact that resistance was futile, do today’s youth believe they can effect change?

We’ve written already about youth and the power of social media in our mobileYouth social media report

Join the conversation on Twitter Graham Brown

Check out these excellent videos for a taster of what is possible - youth using mobile phones and youtube to provide a relatively decentralized account of the news.

Part of the feature series: The 7 Laws of Youth Marketing by Graham Brown

<Back to Law #5) Challenge your internal language

6) If you want to change your results, change your measurements

Ultimately it all comes down to Your choice of metric.

I’ve been a long time proponent of integrating long term business metrics alongside the much favoured yet broken short term measurements such as ARPU and market share which only produce short term results. In my recent presentations, I’ve recommended 3 key metrics as path to change - churn, loyalty and net promoter score (see this article for the challenges in measuring NPS for tech).

See the presentation here

As Jack Welch says “What you measure gets done”, so if you continue to measure short term metrics, the “doing” will always focus on 1-4 above as they are essentially the products of short termism.

No matter how much your marketing team talk up “resurrecting” a brand, “listening to customers” or worse still - “being customer-centric”, the organization will always gravitate back to its natural equilibrium - you cannot fight the DNA of the organization, so change the DNA.

Next> Law #7) Ignore common sense

graham brown, mobile youth, 7 laws, youth marketing, levis, bbdo, diesel, nike, reebok, scion, jones soda, red bull, ea, seth godin, jet blue, zune, reframing, common sense, uncommon sense, bbc, pandg, wunderman, orange, web2, amex, rockcorps, dove, blyk, tohato, net promoter score, nps, loyalty, arpu, churn, meatball sundae, vodafone

At Mobile Youth we have studied the mobile behavior of young consumers since 2001 when everyone else was looking at technology, value chains and killer applications.

For us, mobile behavior is not a new addition to the portfolio or the next great thing but the core raison d’etre of our organization and a central tenet for making your product relevant in youth marketing. When analysts were talking CDMA circuit switches we were helping companies connect their brand with the social drivers of mobile youth behavior.

How do we study mobile behavior?
* Increasingly we take advantage of our on the street video
* Backed by 7 years of quantitative analysis in 60 markets
* And a healthy addition of perspective from working with great youth brands outside the industry (too often mobile gets stuck in the ivory tower considering only telecoms alternatives)

Media interest in mobile life and youth is picking up again as mobileYouth’s Josh Dhaliwal gets onto BBC breakfast news today commenting on mobile youth and texting.

Declining prices for mobile banner ads (Jul 30, 2008 17:07)
Not sure why but there were some articles today about the deal between Virgin Media and mobile adve..

Mobile Advertising Click Through Rate 10% from Nokia and Dolce&Gabbana (Jul 30, 2008 16:18)
Now this I believe. Nokia Interactive runs a mobile advertising campaign in Italy during a fashion w..

Beaconstreetgirls.com - Social Networking for Tweens (Jul 30, 2008 13:31)
What it does Beacon Street Girls, the book series aimed at ?tween? girls, has launched its accompan..

Yoof Insight - Presentation (Jul 30, 2008 09:22)
Great piece of primary research here from JellyTeensJellyteens On 16 24 And The Payg Marketplaceview..

Consumer Advocacy (Jul 30, 2008 08:51)
‘In psychology, there are three distinct ways to influence people??coercion, persuasion and contagi..

Brand Loyalty; possible? (Jul 30, 2008 06:09)
For a consumer to be loyal to a brand, the consumer must connect with it at an emotional level. If t..

Teens and Mobile Phones - Audio Interview (Jul 29, 2008 22:59)
Teenagers and Cell Phones: Full, Unedited Interview with Andr CaronPeople of many different ages use..

moving beyond nike+ - another example of brand utility (Jul 29, 2008 21:55)
It’s become rather annoying that for all the fans of the concept of brand utility, Nike Plus has bee..

Is Flat-Rate Data Really The Catalyst For The Mobile Web & Mobile Advertising? Or Are We Missing The Point? Also: How Mobile Operators Can Earn Billions More (Jul 29, 2008 21:27)
I am amazed how so many individuals - from telecom execs to ad agency reps - at so many industry ev..

Behavioral Targeting and Privacy (Jul 29, 2008 18:00)
Can informed consent put consumers at ease?

Online Viewing Leads 20 Percent To Skip TV Shows Altogether: Report (Jul 29, 2008 17:41)
At industry events, TV network execs often stress that streamed versions of their broadcast program..

Consumers get paid for input on new products (Jul 29, 2008 17:17)
When we wrote about crowdsourcing product-improvement site RedesignMe late last year, we wondered h..

Tweens? Favorite Media Online, Search Integral to Shopping (Jul 29, 2008 17:00)
The vast majority (83%) of tweens (those age 10-14), spend at least an hour online per day, compared..

Opportunity to BETA the new mobileYouth social network (Jul 29, 2008 16:21)
We will open beta testing for a short period only.Here’s a chance to network with marketing, i..

The teen market in the U.S. has typically been among the fastest growing in the wireless industry and by the age of 17 at least 91 percent of girls and 78 percent of boys own a mobile phone, according to a new study from Multimedia Intelligence. That market’s now reaching a point of saturation, so the firm looked into key ages where cellphone ownership appeared to surge or slow down.

Original story here

People of many different ages use cell phones, of course, but for teenagers, it occupies a particularly important role. It’s a social prosthetic, a form of community building, and sometimes the source of battles with parents. Recently, I interviewed André Caron. He’s the director of the CITE at l’Université de Montréal, and Bell Chair in Interdisciplinary Research on Emerging Technologies. He’s also a guy who has done a lot of research into how teens actually use their cell phones, and what role it plays in the development of their culture, in researching his book, Moving Cultures.

Click here to listen to the audio interview (external site)

Opportunity to BETA the new mobileYouth social network (Jul 29, 2008 07:35)
We will open beta testing for a short period only.Here’s a chance to network with marketing, i..

Mobile Data Association New Key trends UK (Jul 29, 2008 07:31)
Q2 2008 Statistical findingsThe MDA reports are unique as they report historical user data, not esti..

Widgets gone wild: the untapped marketing opportunity (Jul 29, 2008 02:14)
Media strategies editor Jim Meskauskas explores widgets as a marketing medium, including their yet-t..

The X Factor: Is digital a hopeless medium? (Jul 29, 2008 02:13)
Can online ever pack the same emotional punch as television advertising? Here are six obstacles..

Customer evangelism case study: Tom’s Shoes (Jul 28, 2008 23:57)
Here’s a customer evangelism case study in the making: Tom’s Shoes . Tom’s was founded in 2006 by B..

‘Getting down’ with Gen Y: 10 ways marketers can connect with millennials (Jul 28, 2008 23:43)
Generation Y represents an important demographic for marketers, yet with a sceptical view of the wo..