Posts Tagged ‘brands’

From the mouths of babes (well, 15 year old teens)

{ July 16, 2009 @ 9:25 am } · { Youth Marketing }
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// Found a fabulous article by Ben Patterson about the 15 year old Marketer causing waves in the US. Just goes to show – again – that you need to listen to the audience – thank goodness for Trax!

//

Teens don’t use Twitter, nor do they read newspapers. They also hate advertisements, and they’re really, really into free music.

Nope, those aren’t the results of some bone-headed new survey; instead, they come straight from the keyboard of one Matthew Robson, a 15-year-old Morgan Stanley intern whose candid report on his friends’ TV, music, and online habits set the media world on fire this week.

According to The Guardian, Robson’s bosses at Morgan Stanley’s European Media group were so impressed with the teen’s report—”one of the clearest and most thought-provoking insights we have seen,” one Morgan Stanley exec said—that they promptly sent it out to their C-level clients.

The response, apparently, was immediate, with “dozens and dozens” of high-level clients “e-mailing and calling all day,” the Guardian reports.

As for Robson’s report, well … the kid didn’t mince words. “Teenagers do not use Twitter” (as quoted by the Guardian). Why? Because updating Twitter on your phone counts as a text message, and teens would rather use their texts to ping friends than update a Twitter profile “that no one is viewing,” Robson writes.

He goes on, dissing newspapers because teens “cannot be bothered” to read physical pages when they can get the condensed version online or on the tube. As for banner ads on the Web? “Extremely annoying and pointless,” Robson observes (according to the Guardian). By the same token, Robson says teenagers are “very reluctant” to pony up for tunes, preferring to stream or share them for free.

Of course, Robson is only speaking for himself (and his friends, I’m assuming). Still, I think it’s great that he took his assignment at Morgan Stanley seriously, writing a direct, honest report that (apparently) hit media bigwigs in the solar plexus.

Converse – Turn 100 and come alive!

{ July 12, 2009 @ 8:38 pm } · { Youth Marketing }
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How does a brand turn 100 and stay significant and cool to its target market? By hitting the very heart of authentic, interactive dialogue with your market.

To set up these conversations and to understand the youth market in South Africa, Converse turned to Youth Dynamix, a leading youth consultancy in South Africa to help establish relevance for the cult brand.

With the largest youth knowledge bank in South Africa, Youth Dynamix designed a youth strategy for Converse with an interactive, experiential social campaign for Converse to celebrate 100 years of Converse authenticity.

The integrated campaign included elements of social media, campus brand ambassadors and a highly successful youth focused competition. The campaign centered around authenticity and encouraging the core brand evangelists with the means and the reasons to become even more vocal!

Campus Brand Ambassadors were selected to champion and evangelise the brand on a number of top campuses in South Africa. This included the Conversified Makeover as well as guerilla penetration into top high profile campus events. Converse Fashion Parties were the hottest ticket to see the very latest, international Converse fashion first in South Africa.
Brand Ambassadors were supported online by a community website as well as a Converse Blog. The aim was to provide a platform for like minded fans to talk to each other and Converse about their passion for the fashion brand! The support and social dialogue on the blog was impressive – a high number of registered users with constant interaction and dialogue on the website been driven by the public. The Facebook Page which acted as a initiator and director to the blog had over 15,000 fans. In terms of successful youth marketing, the motherlode had been achieved with the fans assimilating and absorbing the blog into their world – proving again that social dialogue is vital in communicating with this market.

Supporting the youth trend of personalization, Youth Dynamix launched Trace Your Lace, a competition calling for the design of a new Converse sneaker. Using a wide range of publications and with support from existing platforms including brand ambassadors and the blog, a sneaker template was disseminated for people to create their own design for a Converse sneaker.

The result was incredible.

Over 5,000 entries were received with the oldest entrant being 62 years old and the most entries from one person totaling 100 designs! Utilising the blog, Converse fans were invited to create the Top 10 designs with the final winners being chosen by the Converse Shoe Desginers. Winners received R25,000 or a new Apple Mac Air. Conversations on the winners continued after the end of the competition showing how successful dialogue can extend the life of a campaign even further!
Building on the dual universal drivers of youth, belonging and self expression, Youth Dynamix helped Converse reach their market in a meaningful way. The multi-platform marketing experience created number of positive and far reaching touchpoints, both virtually and physically. This ensured a legacy of the messaging long after the campaign ended – the best case scenario for any brand.

The Global Teen & South Africa

{ July 7, 2009 @ 10:52 am } · { Youth Research }
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In a country where the youth make up more than half of the total population, and with increasing amounts of spend and influence, marketers need ongoing access to the most up-to-date, statistically robust and largest youth research studies in the country: the Youth Dynamix Trax® research studies (both BratTrax® exploring 7-15 year olds and YouthTrax® exploring 16-24 year-olds). ). These studies have been successfully conducted by Youth Dynamix over the past 10 years, providing trended information, across a comprehensive range of topics including Technology & Telecommunications; Media, Advertising and Competitions, Fashion & Music; Attitudes, Lifestyle and General Trends; Financial & Shopping Behaviour and others.

Ultimately, the studies provide a holistic understanding of the lifestyles, behaviour, attitudes and mindsets of the youth, with the insights informing the development of long-term, sustainable and youth-relevant brand and marketing strategies.

To add to the ongoing Trax® offering, in 2008, Youth Dynamix’s YouthTrax® 2008/9 research study partnered with TRU USA in their Global Teen Study which included teens (12-19 year-olds) from 16 countries worldwide, representing 5 continents. The TRU Global Teen Insights Program is the most in-depth look ever at global teen that includes a variety of topics ranging from attitudes and values to lifestyles and trends, as well as consumer behaviours which contains brands, media, telecommunications and technology and much more. The similarities between the two studies, provided a perfect fit, and an ongoing affiliation, as well as comparable results, allowing us to be able to see where and how the teens in South Africa measure up to their global counterparts.

The countries in the Global Teen Study were categorised into “developed” and “emerging” countries according to the FTSE categories, and South Africa fits into the emerging category, along with Brazil, China and India. The results of the study demonstrated many commonalities in teens worldwide, with some differences identified between developed and emerging market teens which were largely governed by disparities in personal spending capacity.

As a rule, South African youth sit fairly comfortably in the emerging market teen profile, although in certain respects our youth think and behave more like developed market teens. For example, the cellphone penetration in South African teens, in terms of having their own cellphone, stacks up handily at 86% with teens in Germany (86%) and Greece (87%), and even slightly ahead of teens in the UK (85%), Spain (84%) and the US (83%).

Taste in brands is another area where true globalisation of teens has been seen: South African teens list Coke, Nike, Billabong, Levi’s and Adidas as their top five brands (irrespective of category); in selecting Coke as a top brand, they are joined by teens in Brazil, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, India, Italy, Norway, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Nike is a top brand amongst teens in Brazil, China, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Other areas illustrating the phenomenon of the Global Teen are their common leisure time activities, interest in sports, and favourite movie/TV stars.

On the other hand, developed and emerging teens show distinct differences in terms of personal spending capacity, interaction with media (in particular Internet, and favourite types of websites, as well as their attitudes towards various societal, politicial and environmental issues. For example, video and photo sharing websites are much more popular among developed teens than emerging. In this regard, South African teens are much more akin to their emerging market counterparts.

These insights are but a few of those to have emerged from the two studies and the partnership between them. For more information on where South African teens are, and where they stand in relation to their global counterparts contact Quentin Weldon at Youth Dynamix on tel (011) 806 8068 or email quentin.weldon @ youthdynamix.co.za.