Mobile Youth Consumers

• Published:December 5th, 2008
• Comments:No Comment
• Category:mobile youth marketing

Last time we asked the question - mobile advertising to youth - will it work? One of the key issues was trust -

Seems trust is key in building relationships with young consumers. Here are real views from young consumers on mobile advertising from our on-the-street video series

Overview of mobile advertising
* If youth dont trust mobile, is all this talk of marketing academic over at Youth Marketing’s blog
* Display is dead - so sayeth the experts @ Experience Matters and The Equity Kicker
* Also check out Peggy Ann Salz’s mobile advertising whitepaper here
* Get the low down on Free MVNO Blyk’s latest data in this podcast
* TV Advertising and Mobile Youth
* SMS Advertising is growing @ Isralog
* IAB’s US guide to mobile @ mobile youth consumers
* “In terms of mobile advertising there are of course many challenges still facing the industry. How can advertising cease to be advertising and become a service, relevant information, or just ’stuff’ that individuals want to engage with? Well that’s simple. Ask them. Don’t assume anything, just ask them. The most powerful algorithms and technologies are no match for communication and dialogue, two attributes at the very core of mobile telephony. As Jonathan MacDonald pointed out in his presentation, our perception of advertising needs to be re-defined. Mobile is not a broadcast channel but a communication medium and serving ads based on assumptions is the road to ruin. (I’d also like to say a big thank you to Jonathan once again for his outstanding performance as chair on Tuesday).” @ MSearchgroove

Mobile behavior and advertising
* A look at mobile behavior in defining advertising
* Does mobile advertising impact youth flirting mobile behavior? @ Priyanka’s blog

Interesting uses
* Obama used mobile advertising to target youth (over @ Moconews and mobile software free)
* Can mobile ads sell cars? (Fiercemobile)
* Comscore’s trend in SMS advertising for food (Gomonews) : ““The fastest-growing category of SMS advertising since August 2007 is food, at a rate of 53 per cent, followed by clothing/fashion at 38 per cent and restaurants at 37 per cent.” Hang on. That means that food based products have two out of the three fastest growing sectors, doesn’t it?”

Social media
* Is blogging the new advertising? Pepsi seems to think so. “By now you may have seen some posts from several social media influencers (Peter Shankman, Chris Brogan, PSFK, Jason Falls among others) in the marketing and advertising field about Pepsi’s innovative new campaign being dubbed by many the “Pepsi 25″ for their choice of 25 bloggers to single out and send three packages over the course of an hour.” @ DMWMedia
* There are still plenty of issues with social media advertising as highlighted by Daniel Herman

Media agencies
* Media companies gain on agencies. “As the big media companies go heavily digital, they are generating and owning more of the consumer-behavior data that is one of the marketing’s industry’s most valuable tools. This new trend also enhances their ability to provide ad-agency-like services directly to their advertising clients. Ad agencies, meanwhile, are at an increasing disadvantage in their market if they can not gain access to such data, according to Booz & Co. VP Chris Volmer, who spoke at the recent ANA Conference.” @ Adage
* Companies such as Johnson & Johnson, Kimberly-Clark Corp., Clorox Co., Hewlett-Packard and Verizon also have enlisted media companies lately not just as conduits to reach consumers but also as co-creators of programs to do so. And they sometimes bypass their usual media and creative agencies in the process. @ Advertising Age

New methods
* Bluetooth marketing at events @ MJelly
* Big brands such as Pepsi are embracing mobile barcodes. 400 million (YES 400 MILLION) Pepsi cans will have QR codes on them in the UK (see here: http://foodbev.com/ArticleDetail.aspx?contentId=1738). This means that education or additional cost on education in the mobile space will not be necessary. Brands are doing the hard work and piggybacking on the success with a QR campaign will be a breeze. (GoMoNews)
* Telematics update on mobile advertising @ Andrew Grills Blog

Technorati Tags: mobile advertising, youth advertising, mobile marketing, youth marketing

• Published:October 23rd, 2008
• Comments:No Comment
• Category:mobile youth marketing

Vodafone, like most mobile operators, faces the ongoing challenge of being relevant to the next generation of its customers (youth) while at the same time not losing its broad appeal. It couldn’t re-invent itself as another Blyk or Boost Mobile (nor would it want to) but at the same time, as with the current problem facing the BBC and the recorded music industry the beginnings of a disconnect with young consumers may not be felt today but represents the manifestation of a long term and, importantly, irreversible disease.

Some of the points I discussed in my presentation to Vodafone about the MobileYouth Report include:

* How to build trust through relevance by drawing down on the insight from how brands such as Toyota (through Scion) have already achieved this. Also how brands can use simple metrics such as net promoter score and customer lifetime value to measure progress.
* How to be a remarkable youth brand (see Jones Soda)
* How to communicate directly with youth through their own channels (eg using Youtube rather than mass media and press releases (in this example we look at EA and the recent Tiger Woods “Jesus Shot” fiasco - which is also very funny).

Presented by Graham Brown author mobileYouth.org

Technorati Tags: mobile youth, youth, vodafone, youth marketing, net promoter score, loyalty, trust, churn, mobile youth report, youth research, youth mobile

• Published:October 21st, 2008
• Comments:No Comment
• Category:mobile youth consumers report, mobile youth marketing, next great thing

Youth Marketing is all about something you do with not to youth.” Graham Brown (mobileYouth 2008 Report)

Following my earlier riff about trends in the marketing of Great Youth Brands (last time was Red Bull), I’d like to talk about one of my favourites.

This is the key question - how does a mass market “everything to everybody” brand build relevance with a specific segment - such as Youth?

Consider this challenge facing the largest and most profitable automotive manufacturer in the world - Toyota.

Toyota cannot roll out customized fat pipe blinged rims low riding coupes for the mass market because their core value of reliability is also one of a generic appeal - they will alienate your grandmother and the school teacher.

So this is how Toyota does it - meet Scion - the Toyota sub-brand that no one knows is actually Toyota (unless you study the marque a little harder).

Check the video - this is real ownership and consumer generated content in action, this is consumer ownership of the brand - creating rather than sponsoring events, local Scikotics, magazines etc.