My friend Gary Beck over at Killer B promotions repsonsible for the rather excellent Teen Masters bowling movement asked me recently for my opinion on Nielsen’s latest media report on teens. I’ll share my reply here to bring you into the loop of this discussion too.
Re: Assumptions made in Nielsen report about Teen media usage
Superficially it’s correct, many of the assumptions here are justifiable with our own findings both in research and adhoc evidence. However, as with all research like this it fails to accommodate the primary driver in marketing success – trust.
Youth may be watching/listening but they aren’t trusting the brand. They are “aware” of Cadillac but they’re not buying it. I would say that eyeball metrics are largely irrelevant today born out by the weight of progressive youth brands that are committing their marketing to context rather than media content – Nike 6.0, Red Bull, Jet Blue, Monster, Threadless etc.
For these brands (and considering that Monster is more profitable than Apple per employee), the “do they dont they” debate about social media is irrelevant because communication is a function of trust not technique; engagement occurs when they are face-to-face in context, at the event or in situ (as with Teen Masters).
Successful youth marketing today isn’t about decisions made in which media to buy or the fulfilment of our corporate egos through the big idea or clever advertising campaigns but in decisions made about how we will build trust, how we will restructure our organization to allow us to build relationships.
Those are my two cents worth.
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