Posted in Spring Break Marketing, Youth Culture Research on April 5th, 2009
Filed Under: college students, Event Marketing, Experiential Marketing, Fuze, Generation Y, MTV, Panama City Beach, Rockstar, spring break, spring break 2009, Spring Break Marketing, youth culture, youth culture marketing, Youth Culture Research
Those of you that don’t already subscribe are going to want to sprint to your nearest retailer of fine periodicals and purchase the latest copy of Event Marketer Magazine. In addition to its regular mix of cogent analysis, industry news and silky-smooth photography, there’s an outstanding profile of three of our Spring Break campaigns (which are rolling out as we speak).
That’s right, we’re kind of a big deal. The press can’t get enough of us.
The article, entitled “Playing It Safe,” highlights three of our largest Spring Break brands — MTV, Rockstar and Fuze — and notes that those brands see experiential marketing in tried-and-true Spring Break hotspots as the surest way to connect with Gen-Y. Especially when marketing budgets are lean. The moral of the story is simple: for youth-targeted brands, Spring Break is a nearly unmatched opportunity. Not only does it provide a chance to market to millions — literally millions — of college students, but those that travel to Spring Break destinations tend to be influencers on campus. You’re not just reaching college students — you’re reaching the college students that set the tone for youth culture in general.
To read the article in it’s entirety, either swing by your local newsstand, or go to Event Marketer Magazine online to get the details on our campaigns for Rockstar and Fuze. To whet your appetite, here’s an excerpt:
Branching out from its niche on the West Coast, ROCKSTAR now has college brand ambassadors in 75 schools nationwide. The ambassadors are actual students (keeping the peer-to-peer buzz authentic) that ROCKSTAR, via Youth Marketing Connection’s brand ambassador program, selects to spread the word about the brand on campus. ROCKSTAR brand ambassadors in key colleges and universities receive 20 cases of the product each month as well as premiums to distribute to fellow students at parties, study breaks and other campus activities.
Brand ambassadors post ROCKSTAR content and photos on a Facebook page to get the word out virally. When spring break comes around, ROCKSTAR makes sure its top performing brand ambassadors get the rock star treatment in time-tested locales like Cancun and Acapulco.
“You have to look at spring break as one aspect for a brand in terms of collegiate marketing,” says Frank Guernesey, vp-marketing at ROCKSTAR. “It’s generally a highlight for most students in the course of their year, and it seems to me that the numbers really aren’t that far off than they have been in the past, making Cancun and Acapulco still relevant.”
Part of the rock star experience includes express check-in at the hotel and VIP express entrance to the best bars and clubs for the brand ambassador plus one guest. (At spring break, where lines are long to get into coveted clubs, this perk is priceless.) The brand ambassador and their guests are directed to a ROCKSTAR VIP area with private waiter service. They also have special access to A-list performers. ROCKSTAR culminates its VIP treatment with an exclusive dinner.
During the day, ROCKSTAR hangs out at the pool and beach with the crowds. It has a branded stage on which it runs contests daily and sends out waiters to give out the product chilled in branded mini coolers. The goal is to have its brand ambassadors and their guests get back to campus and tell their network of friends all about ROCKSTAR. Last year, the brand distributed 250,000 cans of product on campuses and at Spring Break, and gained 40,000 Facebook friends.
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!”
