See the full Youth Marketing presentation here
Are you marketing to or with ?
For 50 years we have relied on marketing to youth.
* Tell them you’re cool
* tell them in a big way and
* keep telling them.
(see my 7 types of traditional youth marketing)
The cost of advertising itself converted the medium into one big testimonial – advertising cost money, only big brands could therefore advertise. Big brands were, by definition, popular with their customers. Every large high impact campaign was therefore reassurance to the customer that this brand was the choice of their peers.
That was until digital. Now, anybody can talk to your customers so everyone is. Advertising is no longer the moniker of popularity but simply more noise with youth are actively filtering out. And it is the filtering – whether through peer advocacy or the simple act of gating out irrelevant stimuli – that means whatever the message, however good the product or the latest technology – the vast majority of it never even stands a chance.
For more on gating read the Neuropsychology of Youth Marketing and take the Awareness Test
To get beyond the filter requires Brandwidth (see Brandwidth presentation and video) and the companies that know, know Brandwidth only comess from involving youth in the process. Partnering in the marketing process means acknowledge that in an era where your customers are more likely to look to each other to inform their choices it is your customers who are your most effective marketers.
Commit less to creating clever marketing campaigns and more on building a legacy that will outlast the awareness created by any advertising run. Soon they will have forgotten the ad, but the event you created, the cause you inspired them to be passionate about and the peer group heroes you supported will continue to give and market for you even when your marketing department or agency sleeps.
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