The above slide is a quote from Peter Van Stolk on what it means for youth brands to be “authentic”.
Years ago, being “authentic” meant hiring a clever ad agency to concoct spin.
Youth today, however, have pretty good bulls**t detectors. That’s why you’ll rarely see youth at the tiller of a successful advertising agency. There’s a degree of cognitive dissonance there.
We’re still clutching to Britney. We didn’t really believe that Tiger drove a Buick did we? We’re still telling them that Britney drinks Pepsi when the media are happy to snap her leaving the club clutching a Coke. And we believe that if the foundations of our authenticity are shaky, we’ll compensate by going big (a la Superbowl) because “big means credible” (the evidence for which died when email gave everyone the ability to market).
Cognitive dissonance means distrust.
The reason why you’re brand isn’t simply authentic by buying the authenticity is because authenticity has to be earned. There are countless examples of people and brand who are prepared to dedicated their life & work to being more authentic than you.
If Red Bull is the gold standard of youth marketing, then Monster Energy Drinks is the motherlode. Why? Because as Red Bull tries to mitigate the internal pressures of growing a masterbrand it moves its focus away from the field and into the organization. That opens up the market for a more authentic youth offering – one that is dedicated to one core beachhead of passionistas and not prepared to spread itself to satisfy the need for constant growth in the topline.
Advertising can’t buy the kind of authenticity these grass roots brand have because youth no longer believe what you have to say. Brands such as Red Bull, Threadless, Jones and Monster have partnership marketing in their DNA. When they want to impress youth, they do it rather that say it.
The days of simply sponsoring an event to buy your way into their consciousness are done. If you want to be relevant, you have to do something for youth. Claire Lamont of Smak in Canada took the brave decision to avoid sponsoring an event to raise the profile of their client brand with youth – they decided to create an event. Cost? The Same. Except for that small detail … creativity. And the client brand? Dairy Farmers of Canada. The Product? Cheese. Go figure.
Are you marketing to or are you marketing with? If you want to see the future face of youth marketing, see what Nike is doing in San Clemente (shh… don’t tell the ad agency)
It’s a simple test of authenticity. Simple as it may sound, the challenge isn’t choice of medium to effect our ideas but our internal constraints. We’re still saying rather than doing because to change anything means breaking a few eggshells.
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