Great Brands, Uncommon Sense and Communication with Youth (EA)

by Graham Brown

Youth marketing is always redefining the parameters of what is acceptable. Bright individuals will always push the envelope however there will always be a marcomms department to keep them in check. That was one of the themes of my recent presentation to Vodafone on Youth, Loyalty and Trust and follows on from the Great Youth Brands Series on MobileYouth featuring Red Bull, Jones Soda and Toyota Scion.

Common sense dictates that if a brand gets it wrong, it’s time for damage limitation with the marcomms department leading the charge.

That’s how ordinary brands deal with extraordinary issues - in average ways producing very average results.

However, I’d like to focus on how great youth brands are breaking the mold and doing something out of the ordinary.

Perhaps the best example to date is how EA dealt with the apparent glitch in the latest release of Tiger Woods 08 that including the “Jesus Shot” - where Tiger could walk on water. Obvious mistake. Not just an obvious mistake, but a well known one - one youtube pundit (Levinator 25) made it public amassing over 600,000 views.

Embarrassment for EA? Yes, if it was handled using Common Sense.

However, check this out for sheer marketing brilliance

This is the result of individuals within an organization taking risky decisions to produce extaordinary results that substantially impact the brand in a positive way - that’s what I call Uncommon Sense. That’s the result of bypassing marcomms and challenging the notion of “that’s how it’s always been done”.

Ask yourself, would youth react positively or negatively to this communication from EA then compare to what an average brand would do - ie a cover-up.

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