Mobile Youth Consumers

• Published:October 23rd, 2008
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• 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
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• 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.

• Published:October 21st, 2008
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• Category:video, video marketing, youth marketing

by Graham Brown

Youth marketing is always redefining the parameters of what is acceptable. Bright individuals will always push the envelope however there will always be a marcomms department to keep them in check. That was one of the themes of my recent presentation to Vodafone on Youth, Loyalty and Trust and follows on from the Great Youth Brands Series on MobileYouth featuring Red Bull, Jones Soda and Toyota Scion.

Common sense dictates that if a brand gets it wrong, it’s time for damage limitation with the marcomms department leading the charge.

That’s how ordinary brands deal with extraordinary issues - in average ways producing very average results.

However, I’d like to focus on how great youth brands are breaking the mold and doing something out of the ordinary.

Perhaps the best example to date is how EA dealt with the apparent glitch in the latest release of Tiger Woods 08 that including the “Jesus Shot” - where Tiger could walk on water. Obvious mistake. Not just an obvious mistake, but a well known one - one youtube pundit (Levinator 25) made it public amassing over 600,000 views.

Embarrassment for EA? Yes, if it was handled using Common Sense.

However, check this out for sheer marketing brilliance

Tiger Woods 09 - Walk on Water

This is the result of individuals within an organization taking risky decisions to produce extaordinary results that substantially impact the brand in a positive way - that’s what I call Uncommon Sense. That’s the result of bypassing marcomms and challenging the notion of “that’s how it’s always been done”.

Ask yourself, would youth react positively or negatively to this communication from EA then compare to what an average brand would do - ie a cover-up.

Technorati Tags: graham brown, mobile youth, youth marketing, ea, ea mobile, tiger woods, jesus shot, vodafone, jones soda, scion, red bull

• Published:August 13th, 2008
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• Category:mobile life youth

Celebrating first week of the Olympics… here’s a great presentation on youth trends and mobile in Shanghai China originally by Miriam Rayman for the V&A Global Cities Series in May. The youth cultural survey is from the qualitative and socio-psychological perspective of cultural change.

See also earlier post on mobile youth culture in China and the presentation from the mobile youth culture survey in London

• Published:August 8th, 2008
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• Category:next great thing, youth mobile, youth mobile trends

Here is a sneak peek of some of the insights from our upcoming mobile Youth report

We asked students what the next great thing in youth mobile trends would be with them -

* prepaid or contracts?
* mobile TV or SMS?
* mobile internet/wap?

I think names are really important… they get known as well

~ one 16 year old student describing her Orange contract