Posted in Campus Marketing (On & Off), Youth Culture Research on February 23rd, 2009
Filed Under: Campus Marketing (On & Off), cellphones, David Knox, Generation Y, Millenials, mobile media, mobile technology, teen marketing, teens, texting, tweens, Youth Marketing, youth marketing connection
Ever since cell phones reached a level of ubiquity that rivals pants, those in the business of marketing to Generation Y have been trumpeting the coming of mobile technology. For mobile technology boosters, the refrain is always the same: “Next year — next year mobile technology is going to be huge.” It’s been about five years now, and “next year” simply hasn’t come. (In that way, it seems that mobile technology fanboys and Chicago Cubs loyalists are in the same boat.) But that’s changing.
Mobile technology may have fallen victim to early hype, but there’s no denying that, sooner than later, mobile technology is going to be a key platform for reaching today’s youth. The numbers are simply too good to ignore. Consider this data-rich post from marketing guru, Dave Knox. According to Knox’s numbers, the cellphone is the most popular electronic device in the world; there are more than two times as many cellphones as there are computers. More interestingly still, the average America gets their first cellphone at 10 years old! (At ten years old, I don’t think I even knew my home phone number.) And, again according to Knox, 88 percent of tweens/teens use their cellphone every single of day of their lives. In short: an entire generation is growing up with cellphones — which are, more and more, resembling mobile computers — glued to their hands. Cellphones are stuck on Gen Y like some kind of technological barnicle, and they’re not going anywhere. The longterm result? Not even the most tech-phobic could claim that mobile technology is heading in any direction but up.
We at YMC have, for some time now, advocated a holistic combination of physical (through experiential marketing) and digital (through mobile technology marketing and social media marketing). When the two are employed simultaneously, you’re reaching Gen-Y-ers in a way it genuine and authentic — because it mirrors the way they communicate with their peers and live their lives. This holistic approach means a brand experience — not just another ad. It means connecting with Gen-Y — not shouting at them.
Final thought: mobile technology is posied to fulfill its great promise. Get ready.
Posted in Campus Marketing (On & Off), Spring Break Marketing, Youth Culture Research on February 16th, 2009
Filed Under: blog, blogging, college admissions, college marketing, demographic data, Fortune 500, Generation Y, Millenials, Social Networking, Spring Break Marketing, video blog, youth culture data, Youth Culture Research, Youth Marketing, youth marketing connection, ypulse
Before we begin in earnest, a quick note about the weather: if you’re an East Coaster, you know that this weekend was a godsend — a brief and otherworldly reprieve from winter. Those of us at the Washington, DC, office enjoyed weather in the low 60s, and this week promises to bring highs near 70. (Those stuck in YMC’s Boston headquarters have been less lucky. Sorry guys.) All of this is a reminder that Spring Break is fast approaching. It’s probably time to cut back on the calories and start shopping for those new swim trunks. (And if you’ll allow me a brief and shameless plug, I might add that if you’re a brand, and you’re interested in a Spring Break experiential marketing campaign, the time to act is now. We’re only weeks away from kicking off the Spring Break season, and these campaigns don’t build themselves!)
In non-weather news, our friends at YPulse share some hard data on the growing trends towards social media marketing for major American brands. While this shift towards social media marketing has been well documented, it doesn’t make the numbers any less striking. Consider how far social media has come: just a handful of years ago, blogs were seen as the preserve of political obsessives, tech fanatics and live-journaling teens. Fast forward to 2009, and 39 percent of 500 Inc. companies and 13 percent of Fortune 500 companies have an officially sanctioned and regularly updated corporate blog. (What I haven’t found, thus far, is a complete list which corporations are blogging. If anyone out there has a definitive list, I’d surely be interested in seeing it!)
More interestingly, though, for those of us who spend our time marketing to Millenials: American colleges are leading the way in social media communication. This likely doesn’t come as a huge shock to most of you. According to a recent survey, 41 percent of colleges have a blog, and 48 percent of colleges are maintaining a video blog. In total, 86 percent of college admission programs are using some form of social media. Scan through the whole study, found here, to see changes that have taken place in social media usage between 2007 and 2008 alone. For those who get turned off by charts and graphs and terse academic prose, the main take-away is simple: more school are using more forms of social media to reach out to students than ever before. And, more and more, they’re doing it in a way that’s true to YMC’s model of “engaging and authentic”: unlike in years past, more schools are allowing comments on their blogs. In short, they’re seeking to begin a conversation with students and potential students — they’re not just talking at them. And that, after all, is the magic ingredient in effective youth marketing. If you can create an interactive experience — be it physical or digital — that allows Millenials to engage with a brand in an authentic fashion, you’re going to be successful.
Posted in Campus Marketing (On & Off), Youth Culture Research on November 25th, 2008
Filed Under: Army, army strong, Experiential Marketing, mobile campaign, mobile marketing, tour, virtual experience, youth, youth culture, Youth Marketing
Wow. A trip to the mall will never be the same: the U.S. Army has moved in and set up a sleek retail outlet that makes their typical recruitment centers look like, well, Army recruitment centers. And that’s just one part of the Army’s latest attempts to woo young recruits. The Virtual Army Experience (VAE) is an integrated, experiential marketing campaign that seems to have turned what we all know about the Army recruitment process on its head. We at Youth Marketing Connection think this campaign is innovative enough to warrant a shout-out — particularly because the Army is yet another example of a brand that has figured out that experiential marketing is, dollar-for-dollar, the best way to reach today’s youth.
The program includes a 14,500 square foot retail outlet called the Army Experience Center in a Philadelphia mall that’s staffed by civilians and soldiers donning khakis and polo shirts. Talk about taking the intimidation factor down a notch or 10. Just by simply putting the soldiers in nicely pressed khakis, they are transformed from unapproachable warriors into clean-cut every-men. The civilian clothes also helps to suggest the professionalism of the Army, and the kind of future that might follow one’s service. It tells prospective soldiers that the Army is as much a career move as it is about fighting. While this might be less important to sixteen-year-old boys who are mostly interested in firing over-sized guns, this makes pitching wary parents easier. And with flat screen TVs, Xbox 360s and high-tech simulation equipment, the Army Experience increases the fun factor…while not-so-subtly suggesting that Army life is a lot like playing a video game, only more exciting! 
The mall outlet is only one small part of the VAE program. In fact, the biggest draw of the program is its elaborate mobile tour component. The VAE has visited states across the country with a 19,500 square foot space that includes life-sized vehicles, guns, dozens of computers and scores of flat screens. The use of endless banks of flatscreens here is important: it encourages visitors to associate the Army with high technology — which, in turn, implies safety and control. As part of the “virtual experience,” potential recruits can “test drive” the Army virtually using high-tech simulation equipment. Participants are briefed before they embark on their virtual journeys and at the end they are presented with their results. The mobile tour, which visits highly-trafficked events such as air shows and state fairs, attracts thousands of visitors at a time.
It remains to be seen how effective the VAE program will be, especially in the midst of an unpopular war. The struggling economy — which is surely changing post-high school plans for young men and women across the country — may also be a factor in enlistment rates. Regardless of the impetus, though, what is clear is that Gen Y-ers are showing up in droves to see this innovative campaign. And yet another reason why we are constantly pushing brands to embrace experiential marketing — especially when marketing budgets are looking a bit light.
Note: The Army has not disclosed the name of the agency or agencies involved in the creation and execution of this marketing program. Ignited from California handled design of the mall-based recruitment center, as well as development of the technology. US2, also of California, managed the expansion of the mall space. (Source: Army Deploys ‘Experience Center,’ Adweek, 8/29/08)
Posted in Brand Ambassador Programs, Campus Marketing (On & Off), Youth Culture Research on November 18th, 2008
Filed Under: brand power, Generation Y, MTV, Text Messages, youth brands, youth cuture, Youth Marketing, youth network
YMC’s sparkling new website officially launched in September. The site may only have gone “live” a few months ago, but we’re already thoroughly smitten with our YouthBuzz Blog. It’s providing our team of always-opinionated youth marketers with a much-needed outlet. Now, when they start bugging us about a startling new insight, we always offer the same refrain: don’t tell us about it, tell the blog!
Because we’re each going to take a crack at writing when the spirit moves us, we thought we should formally introduce each member of the team. With that in mind, we’ll be profiling one of YMC’s thought leaders each month until we run out of smart people to brag about.
First up is Carisa Natvig, the undisputed dean of YMC’s college campus network. Carisa arrived at YMC after nearly a decade of work on some of the nation’s biggest brands. Holding posts in marketing, sales, client relations and event production, Carisa cut her teeth on the brands you interact with everyday. From Gatorade to MTV, Famous Footwear to American Eagle, Carisa’s worked alongside the best and brightest in the marketing world.
Carisa joined the YMC team three years ago. Under her leadership, our extensive campus network was leveraged for highly effective, peer-to-peer youth marketing. Year round on-campus marketing for Rockstar energy drinks, for instance, has grown each year by more than 30 percent while she’s been at the helm – with more than 75 colleges actively participating in 2008.
But you can only learn so much from a bio. To give you a sense of Carisa’s thought leadership in the youth marketing space, we asked her a few questions and let her tell it like it is!
What’s the core strategy you employ when marketing to a generation of media-savvy, inherently marketing-wary youth?
“You have to make your brand relevant – and you have to be realistic about what’s going to be relevant to a college sophomore or, say, a high school senior. This may seem simple, but it’s something that brands struggle with all the time. There’s an art that goes into matching the right product to the right audience with the right event. It comes down to knowing your audience extremely well.”
What role does interactive, web-based marketing play in reaching today’s youth?
“You have to be comfortable with playing on their turf. They live their lives in between Facebook binges, Twitter feeds and text messages. The trick is to turn their virtual networks into an asset in the physical world where our experiential marketing thrives.”
Given the amount of time spent online by today’s youth, do physical interactions become more or less valuable as a marketing tool?
“The fact is that a successful experiential marketing campaign is going to employ both the virtual and physical. With that said, the more the world embraces online marketing — and the clutter that comes with it — the more stridently our on-campus brand experiences stand out. If you can successfully create experiences that explain the essence of a brand both on- and off-line, you’re going to make a real impact. Which means happy students and happy clients.”
Describe Generation Y in a few short sentences. What makes them tick? What is one thing that people often misunderstand about today’s youth?
“Sometimes Generation Y gets a bad rep for being shallow or uncurious. They’re presented, at times, as flaky, pop-culture obsessed – as though they have few interests beyond the next ungrammatical text message. I don’t think that characterization could be further from the truth. This generation has an inherent sophistication. They have a global worldview, an incredible ability to synthesize little nuggets of information coming from across countless platforms, and – most critically for us – an eagle eye for marketing. Marketing is practically a native language for them. They instinctively know when they’re being sold to, and, more often than not, they just don’t respond to a traditional corporate pitch. They’re dubious from the outset – and its up to the brand to convince them they’re wrong. You also can’t pay them enough to pretend to like something — they aren’t going to shill for you just to get a free t-shirt. At YMC, we’ve found that the surest path to breaking past that distrust is peer-to-peer marketing. If you pair the right network with the right product, they’ll make the pitch for you!”
Posted in Campus Marketing (On & Off), Spring Break Marketing on November 11th, 2008
Filed Under: consumer engagement, credit crunch, economic downturn, economy, Experiential Marketing, marketing, marketing challenges, recession, youth culture, Youth Marketing
The economy is bad. No need to belabor the topic. You get it. They get it. We all get it. Now that that’s been said, let’s move on and talk about what that means to people like us. The people in charge of marketing a brand, product, gadget, widget, whatever. The people that have to ensure that our work is actually doing something – increasing brand recognition, moving product, changing minds. It seems pretty clear that results are more important now than ever.
So, what do today’s headlines that include words and phrases like “panic,” “sharp falls,” “recession,” “consumer pessimism,” and “credit crunch” mean to marketers really? Well, according to a recent poll by MarketingSherpa, it means that 60% of all large companies polled will cut their budgets this year. And it looks like television and radio are getting hit the hardest, which is probably not all that surprising given trends over the past few years.
But what do you do with your newly limited budget? Especially when your sales projections don’t give a hoot about the spiraling economy. Rethink your strategy, of course. And then make sure that every dollar you spend counts.
• Get reacquainted with your customers – secure some one-on-one time with them. Where are they working and playing? Be there. Make an impression.
• Keep your customers happy – keep them engaged. Make them remember why they loved you in the first place.
• Don’t go into hiding – remember that with every brand that drops out of sight, your share of voice goes up. A brand could go from small fish/big pond to medium fish, and so on, pretty quickly. It’s just like the old buy-low/sell-high thing…
It’s the perfect time to increase your one-to-one consumer engagement. And one of the most effective ways to accomplish this – especially when you’re targeting high school and/or college students is experiential marketing. It’s the easiest, not to mention the most cost-effective, way to create a meaningful interaction with your brand. That could mean anything from increasing your presence on campus via product sampling to creating an event where students can compete with each other, or even creating an entertainment venue where they will associate your brand with the fun time they have with their friends.
Wouldn’t it be great if all this economic downturn talk went away tomorrow? And our wallets and Excel sheets magically repopulated themselves to 1999 standards… Ah, to dream big. Well, since that’s unlikely, here’s to more strategic spending across the board. It’s not only smarter — it’s now a necessity.
