Your biggest challenge today as a marketer isn’t asking “how do we engage youth?” but asking “how do we remove the internal barriers that prevent us engaging youth?”. Your biggest sale is the internal one and your competitor your own organization.
Advance apologies for its use but I will mention the C-Word.
If you’re in youth marketing today, the actual task of engaging youth is pretty easy.
Yes, I said Easy. Despite what analysts and pundits say, there are ready-made Beachheads of fans out there who already love your product regardless of whether you’re marketing to them or not. In fact, they probably love it in spite of your marketing and customer service department. Jones Soda is a great example – loved by fans but the company is a mess due in part to the Under Armour effect.
So, why is it for so many marketers, so difficult to engage youth?
It’s at this point my friends I have to warn you for the use of the C word.
Change.
The reason why companies find it so difficult to engage youth isn’t because youth are “fickle” or some mythical generation that only your generational expert can decipher. Let’s face it, youth are youth are youth. Okay they wear Diesel today whereas it was 501s 20 years ago and they ironed their hair 20 years prior to that. Under the hood, they’re pretty much the same species. Youth in striped shirts, trench coats, pleat trousers (pants), 3/4 lengths, white socks and pumps. It could be 1983 but it’s not it’s 2010. They had Apaches and Hooligans in the 19th Century (I’m talking about street gangs). Youth 100 years ago, as today whether in Saudi Arabia, Stockholm or Sydney are motivated by the 2 key drivers of consumer behavior – they want to belong, want to be significant.
So what’s with the C-word?
Your challenge isn’t asking “how do we engage youth?” but asking “how do we remove the internal barriers that help us connect with youth?”. Your biggest sale is the internal one and your competitor your own organization.
What are these barriers I talk about?
* Agencies that tell you to get onto social media or mobile but still keep the storytelling focused on you not on helping the customer tell theirs
* Metrics that confine all your activity to the 90 day window
* Co-workers that say “we’re different here” or “we’re not in the soda business” when they look at how a soda brand successfully engaged youth
* Organizations that believe the CEO is the changemaker. By the time she finds out, you’re already on your way out of business. The CEOs role is to foster a culture where change can occur at a local level without the need to consult her.
* People who believe that being “liked” by customers is good enough.
So the C-word is the root of frustration. Most will think – why bother? I just want to have a quiet life, get stuck into my work and not rock boat. Unfortunately, it’s not what your company needs. Your company is unable to instigate change from the top – it must come from you. Pepsi fired BBDO after 50 years of partnership because BBDO was unable to change from selling the Big Idea to Pepsi – a partnership that brought you The Pepsi Generation. Change was beyond the CEO because on the quarterly earnings, things didn’t look broken.
How to deal with the frustration? I’ve been there; you’ve slaved over the presentation paying attention to every detail and making the case studies bulletproof. You’ve rehearsed, polished. You delivered a fantastic narrative and they respond “Yes but…”
Here’s the rub ladies & gentlemen – ignore the “Yes buts”. 90% of your organization, your partners, your industry network are “yes buts”. Even in Red Bull, Monster and Apple there are “yes buts” – you’d better believe it. They are psychic vampires that will drain your energy and resources. They don’t want Change because Change they’ve worked hard to arrive at their position and now you’re rocking their foundations.
The biggest sale is internal
How can you create an organization that is easy for youth to engage with?
* Stop wasting your energies on the “yes buts”. It’s like trying to convince a child that Santa Claus doesn’t exist. No matter what evidence you place under their nose (“how does the fat guy get down the slim chimney?”), their world view is such that there’ll always be a comeback.
* Focus your energies on the 10%. Beachhead marketing shouldn’t just be an external communication effort – it’s also how you should work on your own people. Empower the 10% in your organization who need to hear this. And, here’s the good news – the really good news – you don’t need to find them. They’ll find you. All you need to do is plant a flag in the ground and say “I’m here”. They’ll come looking. Planting a flag means naming something – an internal seminar, an event, a team, a newsletter, an intranet community or whatever that gives these people a cause. Remember, what drives youth? Need to belong, need to be significant. Apply this to your own people be they aged 4 or 94.
* Become a crowd-pleaser. Step to the plate. Somebody has to do it and if you’re already reading this, I’m guessing it might just be you. Your mission is to motivate minds to create internal change, create an organization that youth can easily engage with. Your challenge is the organization – it is the gravity to your beating wings. The yes-buts will close in on your efforts waiting for failure. They will pervert your ideas and words to create chaos. If you want to know how the great crowd-pleasers do it, take a look at JFK. His organization was 200 million Americans. His mission, to beat the Soviets to the Moon. How? Not by lengthy mission statements but by making it very simple. As the US Army says “No plan survives the enemy” and your enemy very much is the yes-but culture. Here’s how JFK did it:
Our mission is to get a man to the Moon and return him safely by the end of the decade
Now imagine what convoluted nonsense your PR agency would come up with when writing your corporate communications “We are the leading provider of …”. Simple wins every time. Your mission here is to energize your company. Create a company that youth can easily engage with. Destroy the barriers. Defeat the yes-buts. Create Change.
“Yes but…we don’t have yes-buts in our company”.
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