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There was a time when Pepsi said that they were the “choice of a generation” and youth believed. There was a time that in exchange for the inconvenience caused by interrupting young people on TV, in the magazine or at the bus stop, creative agencies would balance the transactional deficit by delivering humour.

That’s what gave us the drumming monkey or the funny gopher thing. You know what we’re talking about. Make ‘em laugh and make them forget about the whole inconvenience. (update: after speaking to my new friend Mip Phillips about this today, I have to add “Monkey on a Trike“)

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The era of “Advertising is Content” is dead because content alone is no longer enough to engage youth.

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The discussion about “it is” or “it isn’t” is largely irrelevant because content is a mere bit-player in the marketing issue.

Blyk tried to give this stuff away and pay youth for the inconvenience. Despite claims of “massive success“,  it seemed they couldn’t even give their service away for free.

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You see, today marketing is a function of context not content because communication is a function of trust not technique. Being “clever” with your advertising content through buying Michael Jackson or Madonna no longer smacks of authenticity.

Getting face-to-face with young consumers creates trust.

Context enables brands like Red Bull, Threadless and Monster get that face to face (see my Ebook on the subject here). Great youth brands grow context around their grass roots support.

Context means creating an environment around the medium not an environment within the medium as demonstrated by Adidas when they augmented their mobile marketing campaign through creating an in-situ experience.

Context is the platform for interaction. It’s the base of partnership marketing. It’s the move from treating youth as the destination for the marketing message to treating them as partners in its creation. Remember – they’re all marketers. Not only does context create powerful advocacy but also the most authentic insights you could wish for.

Content means clever campaigns , celebrities (Motorola Beckham anyone?) and sponsoring (read Sony Ericsson sponsoring a tent at Glastonbury).

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Context means creating (read Boost Mobile’s grass roots activism , Twilight’s convention and fan tour or Red Bull 1976 Games)

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Content means pipelining messages onto the market and you’re done. Next campaign?

Context doesn’t mean buying your own F1 team. It can mean a cheese rolling event or similarly niche offerings such as downhill biking in downtown Hong Kong. Whatever you choose it’s about creation of Social Currency to enable you brand to provide the platform for ongoing conversation.

This is the key distinction between paid and earned media.

Procter & Gamble’s BeingGirl.com creates context because it doesn’t sell tampax through clever content, it creates a community for young girls to address their daily challenges – a context in which the product sits comfortably in the consciousness of the community member.

Ford Fiesta shifted their youth focus from simply buying media space on billboards and implementing a clever SMS integration to creating a whole movement.

One’s lazy, one’s inspired.

Needless to say, one required breaking a few eggshells , challenging internal conventions surrounding language and ignoring marketing common sense.

Ford Fiesta’s movement is the move from campaigns to conversations in action.

Youth Conspiracy’s work with Durex demonstrated that to sell condoms to young males wasn’t about a humorous and often risque ad campaign (that “big idea” thing again) but a context in which youth could address their questions and issues about sex that wasn’t an STD clinic or government Aids awareness campaign.