mobileYouth®

(Share Me: permission to use this graphic as you wish provided with appropriate citation)

See the full Youth Marketing presentation here
Want ideas & visuals for your next Youth Marketing presentation?

When Pepsi made the decision to go big or go home in the 60s, it needed a new way of thinking – a paradigm shift – that would enable marketing execs to communicate the change internally and evolve the brand from sleepy also ran found in pharmacies, mom and pop stores or sold by street vendors.

The Pipeline mindset has served many Industrial for the last 50 years:

• Create the product
• Advertise to stimulate customer awareness
• Attract customers

Just as modern education still bears the legacy of an industrial era – from school bells to filed seating to punishing future managers for co-operating in the exam hall – so modern marketing still operates according to the Industrial philosophy of the Pipeline.

Pipelines, however, work. They work where there is no choice. They work where consumers don’t have access to Google. They work where choice is a compromize – Bhangra underground doesn’t exist so I’ll settle for the Beatles. They work where Radio DJs, Tower Records, MTV, Seventeen magazine, Top of the Pops and the Official Billboard Chart have the authority to inform consumer choice.

But these old fashioned networks self-portrayed as “value chains” have little Brandwidth today to inform or shape youth opinion. Pipeline brands are finding that the paths to market cleared by these media partners offer decreasing returns. “Value Chains” are no longer ineffective their use in corporate literature is potentially damaging to your brand.

Smart brands know. They don’t Pipeline, they build Platforms.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!