mobileYouth®

Are you in the business of selling products or connecting your customers? (Tribes)

Is your business geared towards creating marketing content or context?

As the man says here…

BRAND MANAGEMENT IS DEAD…

(this is 2009, not 1999)

BeingBrave

When Procter & Gamble were tasked with raising the profile and profitability of Tampax for teenage girls they could have so easily focused on above the line campaigning to drive product sales. They could have looked across at exponents of the Pepsi Generation / Britney Spears model of marketing in Motorola’s attempts to engage the youth market with David Beckham.

But, when you’re dealing with teenage girls the one thing P&G got right, despite its size, was it understood the challenges facing the market – and the biggest challenge is attention. Attention is your biggest cost. The Pipeline doesn’t work. Awareness means nothing.

Beinggirl.com was not about selling Tampax to teenage girls – it was about connecting them, it wasn’t about managing the brand. BG reminded us that to engage we need to connect our customers because they’re all marketers. Connecting them with each other and connecting them with peers who could dispense advice about the daily issues that face your average (and some not-so-average) teenagers. P&G were brave enought not to fall in love with their campaign and start thinking about their market, seriously.

Don’t fall in love with your product

In short – be the platform not the product.

And it’s not just P&G there are 100s of brands out there (as highlighted by Ian Votteri’s interview here) who aren’t scared to play by their own rules. Check out Durex’s work with Youth Conspiracy – prime example of an agency that understands that when it comes to youth marketing, being safe is the riskiest thing you can do. Check out how Twilight, the movie, is continuing to ignite the teen influencers by connecting them rather than impressing upon them the merits of the next installment. Check out our visit to Threadless.

The reason why old media is losing the battle one customer at a time is that even when controversy can drive massive “awareness” (e.g. MTV / Kanye), the media has no permission asset, no context to capture the goodwill.

Social Currency

Back in the day, TV facilitated social currency “out of the box”. Now, it falls short. For TV to remain relevant it has to focus on the social not the viewing experience; it’s not about “mobilzing” TV but enabling TV to become the fabric of conversation as it was a generation ago.

Fear dominates brands

While Tomi’s right in saying Communities dominate brands (in theory), in practice it’s FEAR that dominates brands. That’s why most are boring. Plastering your advertising message across Times Square or going pop-up is boring – it’s irrelevant and ultimately annoying. Most cringe when we say “kill your campaign“. Most break out in a sweat when the realize the realities of letting employees or customers “own the brand“.

You gotta break a few eggshells

Making a difference means breaking a few eggshells. Most brand managers would rather spend their lives treading lightly. As Dan Pankraz says in his post, “Create Culture or Go Home” (covered on radio here), most brand execs would take the line of least resistance.

95% of brands are lazy. Most brands are paralyzed to act; brand managers would rather keep the media companies and respective agencies alive than cut the cord and deliver what the customer wants. And what do young customers want? Social Currency. They want to belong, they want to be significant.

The Era of Brand Democracy

This is the foundation of partnership marketing. This is the era of the grass roots brand. This is the era when a unknown group called Short Stack can hit the #1 spot by starting from square 1. This is the era when global brands like Nike hire out a Motel in San Clamente to build a grass roots movement off your radar. For more information on growing a grass roots movement check out my Ebook on the subject here.

This is the era of brand democracy. Managing the brand is driven by people power. Everyone has a voice. Even your customer. Your role as the “executive” is to provide leadership, not control.

The future of Storytelling

Telling stories about the brand are no longer relevant. This is the long tale (yes you read that right – tale not tail)… When reaching youth, the narrative has to be about them and it’s a marathon of a narrative, not just a campaign. Ask yourself are you interrupting or supporting the conversation?

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