Youth Marketing Blog by Graham Brown

Customers are the Brand (video)

2009-11-07T13:20:00.001-08:00

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Customers are the Brand: Customers Are The Brand - Presentation

2009-11-07T03:07:00.001-08:00

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2010 mobileYouth Tour Dates - 15 cities added

2009-11-06T04:13:00.001-08:00

Just released! Following our successful 2009 tour, we’re putting together a tentative tour itinerary to share mobileYouth updates on trends and youth marketing insights for 2010. Here are the initial dates. If you want mobileYouth to speak/present at your conference/company or seminar then contact us here in first instance and let’s get talking. As you can see, time is going to be limited to 2 engagements per city so contact us early.

Feb Week 1

Turkey

Feb Week 2

Bahrain (1 space left)

Dubai (fully booked)

Delhi/Mumbai (1 space left)

Kuala Lumpur (1 space left)

Feb Week 3

Jakarta

Singapore (1 space left)

Hong Kong

Taipei

Shanghai

Feb Week 4

Tokyo (fully booked)

Mar Week 1

Seattle (1 space left)

San Francisco

New York

Toronto

Use Twitter to contact Josh or Graham directly.

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mobileYouth tour dates Americas Q4 09 (Brazil, Canada and USA)

2009-11-05T01:06:00.001-08:00

OK, it’s on - we’re visiting the Americas and here is the tour schedule:

November

Sun 8-Wed 11: Brazil Sao Paulo
Thu 12: Chicago
Fri 13: Seattle
Sat/Sun 14/15: Vancouver
Mon 16: Saskatoon
Tue/Wed 17/18: Toronto
Thu 19: New York

If you’re interested in making contact or want mobileYouth to come present @ your office then ping us here

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Blind Boys » Archive » iSpeakChina by Adrian Fisk

2009-10-02T14:18:00.001-07:00

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Content is Dead… Long live Context | mobileYouth - youth marketing mobile culture research

2009-09-25T10:31:00.001-07:00

You are here: Home / youth marketing insights / features / Content is Dead… Long live Context

Content is Dead… Long live Context

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There was a time when Pepsi said that they were the “choice of a generation” and youth believed. There was a time that in exchange for the inconvenience caused by interrupting young people on TV, in the magazine or at the bus stop, creative agencies would balance the transactional deficit by delivering humour.

That’s what gave us the drumming monkey or the funny gopher thing. You know what we’re talking about. Make ‘em laugh and make them forget about the whole inconvenience.

The era of “Advertising is Content” is dead because content alone is no longer enough to engage youth.

The discussion about “it is” or “it isn’t” is largely irrelevant because content is a mere bit-player in the marketing issue.

Blyk tried to give this stuff away and pay youth for the inconvenience. Despite claims of “massive success“, it seemed they couldn’t even give their service away for free.

You see, today marketing is a function of context not content because communication is a function of trust not technique. Being “clever” with your advertising content through buying Michael Jackson or Madonna no longer smacks of authenticity.

Getting face-to-face with young consumers creates trust.

Context enables brands like Red Bull, Threadless and Monster get that face to face (see my Ebook on the subject here). Great youth brands grow context around their grass roots support.

Context is the platform for interaction. It’s the base of partnership marketing. It’s the move from treating youth as the destination for the marketing message to treating them as partners in its creation. Remember - they’re all marketers. Not only does context create powerful advocacy but also the most authentic insights you could wish for.

Content means clever campaigns , celebrities (Motorola Beckham anyone?) and sponsoring (read Sony Ericsson sponsoring a tent at Glastonbury).

Context means creating (read Boost Mobile’s grass roots activism , Twilight’s convention and fan tour or Red Bull 1976 Games)

Content means pipelining messages onto the market and you’re done. Next campaign?

Context doesn’t mean buying your own F1 team. It can mean a cheese rolling event or similarly niche offerings such as downhill biking in downtown Hong Kong. Whatever you choose it’s about creation of Social Currency to enable you brand to provide the platform for ongoing conversation.

This is the key distinction between paid and earned media.

Procter & Gamble’s BeingGirl.com creates context because it doesn’t sell tampax through clever content, it creates a community for young girls to address their daily challenges - a context in which the product sits comfortably in the consciousness of the community member.

Ford Fiesta shifted their youth focus from simply buying media space on billboards and implementing a clever SMS integration to creating a whole movement.

One’s lazy, one’s inspired.

Needless to say, one required breaking a few eggshells , challenging internal conventions surrounding language and ignoring marketing common sense.

Ford Fiesta’s movement is the move from campaigns to conversations in action.

Youth Conspiracy’s work with Durex demonstrated that to sell condoms to young males wasn’t about a humorous and often risque ad campaign (that “big idea” thing again) but a context in which youth could address their questions and issues about sex that wasn’t an STD clinic or government Aids awareness campaign.

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Posted by Graham Brown on Friday, September 25, 2009 at 3:48 pm (Edit)
Filed under features · Tagged with advertising, blyk, content, context

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Ebook Download: Youth Marketing in China | mobileYouth - youth marketing mobile culture research

2009-09-22T13:34:00.001-07:00

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Paid or Earned Media - Making Gravity is Hard Work - Servant of Chaos

2009-09-16T06:44:00.001-07:00

« Five Must-Read Posts from Last Week | Main

Paid or Earned Media - Making Gravity is Hard Work

Whether you are walking down the street, watching the TV, surfing the net or even driving a car, you are the subject of some form of advertising. From the branded cap on the boy walking down the street to the billboard behind him – marketing is hard at work trying to capture your attention. Constance Hill and Bruce Henry suggest that we see around 3000 marketing messages each day. But no matter whether we see 100 or 10,000 messages – clearly we are exposed to a significant number. But how many do you recall? How many seep into your unconscious, adding a negative or positive neuron to your thoughts around these brands?

Now, add into this mix the dozens or even hundreds of blogs that you read and the tweets that you view on Twitter each day. Combine this with podcasts, music streams via blip.fm, videos on YouTube and email – and suddenly you have an abundant media stream that can appear overwhelming. As Sean Howard says, “In today's world everyone is a publisher, everyone has some level of influence, and everyone has a network of influence that is difficult to define let alone measure”. It makes the life of the media consumer rather complex.

As a marketer, however, you do have a specific objective. What you are aiming for is MAKING GRAVITY. With paid media you are using your marketing budget to have your content inserted into spaces that your audience inhabit. It is an expense which you measure in terms of how many people you have reached with your communication.

Earned media (or what Craig Wilson calls engagement marketing), on the other hand, is both different in nature and in measurement. Rather than being an expense, it is an investment. Its effectiveness is directly related to what you DO rather than what you SAY, and the value that is exchanged is not currency, but trust. As I have explained previously – it is about changing behaviours:

Every time we forward on a link, retweet a message read on Twitter or any other type of social network interaction, we are CHOOSING to act. We are not just using our network of connections to FILTER the noise, we are using it to SHAPE our experience. It is a choice. And understanding this distinction places us in a context where STORYTELLING emerges as vitally important?

Paid media has been an effective marketing approach for hundreds of years (if not longer). But it thrived in a time where attention was abundant and our media consumption choices were limited to a set number of channels. These days, media is abundant but our attention (and maybe more importantly, our respect) is scarce. Graham Brown has an excellent five minute piece on the challenges presented by these changes.

But the fundamental difference with paid vs earned media is the refocusing of effort. No longer do you spend your creative energies (and budgets) on producing executions that gain attention – you spend it on building trust and creating Auchterlonie Effects (stories that can be easily shared). Indeed, in the best traditions of storytelling, earned media propagates itself – becoming promiscuous in the process.

The reason that promiscuous ideas are important to your brand is that you WANT them to be shared. In social media, every shared idea, link or concept creates an exchange of value within a PERSONAL network – so the act of sharing is a recommendation of sorts. Over time the person who “adds value” to their network builds an abundant store of social capital. It is like branding – we can’t necessarily point to a PARTICULAR item – but to the recurring and ongoing sense of positive exchange relating to that person.

When YOUR brand story or content is the subject of that exchange, you are effectively providing a reason for connection between people in a network. And as these connections grow, as they are passed from person to person, you are creating points of gravity around your brand ecosystem. Your challenge then is to work with a continuous digital strategy to “share the message” but “own the destination”. The thing is, gravity can only be earned. And while you can employ paid media to complement your earned media – you need to make sure you have a compelling story to tell and to share.

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16 September 2009 at 11:48 AM in Branding, Digital Strategy, earned media, Media, Old Media, Social Judgement, Social Media, Storytelling | Permalink

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Comments

Stefano Maggi said...

You're so right, Gavin.
I think the real point is in getting used to a new way of thinking: message is important only when related to engagement and channels are relevant only when they help starting or developing a conversation.
Many marketers have always been thinking about channels and message as something they could choose and build, while today choice and meaning result from a cooperation with consumers.
As you say: there's a need for compelling and shareable stories. Brands can inspire meaning construction: this is the opportunity, imo.

Reply 16 September 2009 at 04:46 PM

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Paid or Earned Media - Making Gravity is Hard Work

Whether you are walking down the street, watching the TV, surfing the net or even driving a car, you are the subject of some form of advertising. From the branded cap on the boy walking down the street to the billboard behind him – marketing is hard at work trying to capture your attention. Constance Hill and Bruce Henry suggest that we see around 3000 marketing messages each day. But no matter whether we see 100 or 10,000 messages – clearly we are exposed to a significant number. But how many do you recall? How many seep into your unconscious, adding a negative or positive neuron to your thoughts around these brands?

Now, add into this mix the dozens or even hundreds of blogs that you read and the tweets that you view on Twitter each day. Combine this with podcasts, music streams via blip.fm, videos on YouTube and email – and suddenly you have an abundant media stream that can appear overwhelming. As Sean Howard says, “In today's world everyone is a publisher, everyone has some level of influence, and everyone has a network of influence that is difficult to define let alone measure”. It makes the life of the media consumer rather complex.

As a marketer, however, you do have a specific objective. What you are aiming for is MAKING GRAVITY. With paid media you are using your marketing budget to have your content inserted into spaces that your audience inhabit. It is an expense which you measure in terms of how many people you have reached with your communication.

Earned media (or what Craig Wilson calls engagement marketing), on the other hand, is both different in nature and in measurement. Rather than being an expense, it is an investment. Its effectiveness is directly related to what you DO rather than what you SAY, and the value that is exchanged is not currency, but trust. As I have explained previously – it is about changing behaviours:

Every time we forward on a link, retweet a message read on Twitter or any other type of social network interaction, we are CHOOSING to act. We are not just using our network of connections to FILTER the noise, we are using it to SHAPE our experience. It is a choice. And understanding this distinction places us in a context where STORYTELLING emerges as vitally important?

Paid media has been an effective marketing approach for hundreds of years (if not longer). But it thrived in a time where attention was abundant and our media consumption choices were limited to a set number of channels. These days, media is abundant but our attention (and maybe more importantly, our respect) is scarce. Graham Brown has an excellent five minute piece on the challenges presented by these changes.

But the fundamental difference with paid vs earned media is the refocusing of effort. No longer do you spend your creative energies (and budgets) on producing executions that gain attention – you spend it on building trust and creating Auchterlonie Effects (stories that can be easily shared). Indeed, in the best traditions of storytelling, earned media propagates itself – becoming promiscuous in the process.

The reason that promiscuous ideas are important to your brand is that you WANT them to be shared. In social media, every shared idea, link or concept creates an exchange of value within a PERSONAL network – so the act of sharing is a recommendation of sorts. Over time the person who “adds value” to their network builds an abundant store of social capital. It is like branding – we can’t necessarily point to a PARTICULAR item – but to the recurring and ongoing sense of positive exchange relating to that person.

When YOUR brand story or content is the subject of that exchange, you are effectively providing a reason for connection between people in a network. And as these connections grow, as they are passed from person to person, you are creating points of gravity around your brand ecosystem. Your challenge then is to work with a continuous digital strategy to “share the message” but “own the destination”. The thing is, gravity can only be earned. And while you can employ paid media to complement your earned media – you need to make sure you have a compelling story to tell and to share.
View the entire comment thread.

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Peter Van Stolk - insights from a brand hero

2009-09-16T03:23:00.001-07:00

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Ebook: Mobile Youth in Emerging Markets (India, China & South Africa) - The Mobile Youth Network

2009-09-12T05:32:00.001-07:00

Ebook: Mobile Youth in Emerging Markets (India, China & South Africa)

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This is not the time for Big Lazy Brands

2009-09-12T02:25:00.001-07:00

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We Are The Digital Kids. (somethingchanged: The problem with ad “campaigns”...)

2009-09-10T01:52:00.001-07:00

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Creating Tribal Ideas for Generation C – my Nokia World presentation « Dan Pankraz Vs Youth

2009-09-10T01:36:00.001-07:00

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EBOOK: Youth Buyology - The Mobile Youth Network

2009-09-10T01:13:00.001-07:00

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Youth Marketing for Non Profits

2009-09-04T12:50:00.001-07:00

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Free report on teen, student and young adult mobile ownership

2009-08-31T05:36:00.001-07:00

You are here: Home / Ebooks / mobileYouth MINI - free holiday season giveaway

mobileYouth MINI - free holiday season giveaway

0

Free 10 page Ebook available for download (reg required if you are not already a mobileYouthnet member).

Free Ebook covering Teen, Student & Young Adult mobile ownership

A surface level skim across the mobileYouth 2009 report giving you insight into teen, student and young adult ownership of mobile phones with historical and predictive data ranging to 2011. Overview of the current challenges facing the mobile industry in trying to engage youth, the growth markets (both geographic and vertical) and the key mistakes made by mobile service providers when addressing this demographic.

Download from mobileYouthnet.com (reg required)

Posted by Graham Brown on Monday, August 31, 2009 at 12:47 pm (Edit)
Filed under Ebooks · Tagged with mini, mobile youth, mobileyouth, Report

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Bud Drinkers, Not Agency, Will Be Behind the Next Chinese New Year Campaign - Advertising Age - Global News

2009-08-31T00:45:00.001-07:00

Bud Drinkers, Not Agency, Will Be Behind the Next Chinese New Year Campaign

Chinese Beer Consumers to Create the Next Budweiser Spot Through Online Contest

Posted by Normandy Madden on 08.26.09 @ 12:46 PM

Budweiser consumers will come up with the next Chinese New Year spot.

--> SHANGHAI (AdAgeChina.com) -- Anheuser-Busch InBev is the latest marketer in China to invite consumers to create an ad campaign, but the brewer has one rule: The commercial must feature ants.
The U.S. beer giant is partnering with Tudou.com, a Chinese video-sharing site like YouTube, in a contest that lets consumers pitch ideas for a Bud TV spot that will run during the Chinese New Year in February 2010.
The Budweiser digital contest was created by A-B InBev's marketing team in Shanghai and is a first for the company globally. DDB Worldwide, which was named Budweiser's global agency this week, JWT and TBWA Worldwide regularly work on local and imported A-B InBev brands in China, but no ad agencies are involved in this contest. Only ants.
Ants are an "important and widely welcome symbol of Bud China. We launch a new ants TV commercial during Chinese New Year every year," said Vivian Yeh, A-B InBev's Shanghai-based new media manager for China.
The ants, a motif of Bud's annual Chinese New Year campaign for the past 10 years, have become part of China's biggest and most traditional holiday.

Budweiser China's 2009 Chinese New Year TV spot.

Each year, an army of clever and helpful ants finds unique ways to deliver Budweiser to thirsty Chinese beer drinkers, usually involving iconic images such as China's Great Wall, the Olympic "Bird's Nest" stadium in Beijing or Shanghai's riverfront Bund district. (View the past Chinese New Year TV spots featuring the ants on Tudou.com.)
In previous years, the celebrated commercial was produced by Hong Kong creative agency Image Boutique. This year, A-B InBev has turned to fans of the ant spots.
Web users can compose and submit ideas on a site, bud.tudou.com, outfitted with a storyboard design engine created by Bud for the contest. The engine lets would-be creatives write, draw and edit to transform ideas into a TV commercial storyboard.
"The ideas should not only be humorous and impressive, but also reflect the international king of beers brand image of Budweiser. The ants will overcome all kinds of challenges by showing their intelligence, courage, teamwork, spirit and solidarity," Ms. Yeh said.
Entries can be submitted and voted on through the end of August. From five finalists picked Sept. 1, judges will name the grand winner, who collects a 100,000 RMB ($14,637) cash prize and gets to help produce the ad.

--> The other four finalists get small cash prizes. A-B InBev has already received nearly 1,000 submissions.
The contest judges include Rex Wong, A-B InBev's VP-marketing and new products; Tudou's CEO Gary Wang; Paul Wong, the director of the Budweiser ants TV spots since 2003; and a celebrity to be named later.
"We realized user-generated ideas and online video are both very popular among internet users at this stage, so this is the area that we want to use as well," Ms. Yeh said. "We always consider ourselves as a 'king of beer' so Bud's brand image is about prestige, leadership and leaders who pursue high quality."
Bud is a premium brand in China, selling for between 88 cents and $1.17 a bottle in convenience stores and up to $4.39 in restaurants. In trendy bars and nightclubs, the price starts at $5.85. Bud drinkers in China tend to be educated, high-earning males who live in China's tier-one and tier-two cities.
The strategy of letting consumers take control of advertising has become popular in China, as marketers go after young, affluent white-collar workers who are eager to engage with each other and with companies online -- but seldom watch TV. Other mass marketers like PepsiCo, Coca-Cola and McDonald's have successfully done contests that let consumers come up with story lines for TV commercials and slogans.
The animated insects were chosen as the spokespeople for Budweiser in China in 1997, Mr. Wong said. They depict "the Chinese national spirit of diligence, solidarity and intelligence."

--> Those attributes sound a lot like A-B InBev's corporate mantra these days. The contest is part of an aggressive effort to regain its status as "King of Beers." Earlier this year, Chinese brew Snow Beer overtook Anheuser-Busch's Bud Light as the world's largest-selling beer brand.
With sales flat in the U.S., A-B InBev is looking for growth in emerging markets such as China, already the world's largest beer market. China's beer output grew 6% year-on-year to 20.51 million liters in the first half of 2009, but sales are dominated by three local manufacturers. Snow Beer, Tsingtao Brewery Co., and Beijing Yanjing Brewery Co. account for about 40% of the market. Snow is produced by a joint venture between China Resources Enterprise Co. and SABMiller.
Bud's sales are likely to keep growing, but not as fast as A-B InBev might like, said Joy Huang, a Euromonitor research analyst in Shanghai. The financial crisis "will have some negative effect on premium beer sales, and pub and bar culture hasn't extended to China's lower tier cities yet.'
At the same time, she added, "Budweiser is facing fierce competition from other multinational brands like Carlsberg Chill, which has a very fashionable image. Local brands are also trying to move upwards with premium brands of their own, such as Snow Draft, which was launched in 2008."
In 2007, the most recent year for which Euromonitor has data on China's beer market, InBev and Anheuser-Busch controlled 13% of China's beer market, making it the No. 2 marketer after Snow Beer (17.9%). Tsingtao and Yanjing's market shares wee 12.8% and 10.4%, respectively.
Visit the Ad Age China home page here

4 Comments

By TheWealthSquad | Riceville, TN August 26, 2009 01:55:16 pm:

It was mentioned that several other companies have ran successful campaigns using consumer generated commercials. How do they define success?
While it is a great way to generate some buzz for your product, do consumer videos have the same impact that professionally generated ones do? I would be interested to see how they measure the success of the campaign.
With Chinese culture this may be an effective tactic to get their target demographic involved in the brand. I am just not sure that it is the most effective way to create brand evangelists.
Scott
Want to be more productive in everything you do?
http://www.AskTheWealthSquad.com/freeoffer
Permalink

By normandym | HONG KONG August 26, 2009 10:38:52 pm:

The response has been very high for some marketers, namely Pepsi, which has become very good at this type of consumer-focused contest/campaign in China, at least for brand awareness and engagement with consumers. It's hard to say how much it directly translates into sales, research tools to gauge that aren't as sophisticated at this point in China as they are in the U.S. But if they didn't feel it was working they probably wouldn't keep doing it. Pepsi started these type of contests four years ago. (There is a lot more information about these campaigns in AdAgeChina.com.)
Normandy
Asia editor, Advertising Age
Permalink

By PATRICK | ATLANTA, GA August 27, 2009 03:37:00 pm:

Free idea, China. "The Most Interesting Man in the World" crushes ants with a Budweiser bottle. A swarm of ants eat him, drink Bud.
Love for the great Dos Equis campaign at http://bit.ly/whi6I
Permalink

By DENISE | SAN DIEGO, CA August 28, 2009 01:18:21 pm:

three years ago when user-generated ads were becoming popular, i wrote an article ((http://brandchannel.com/brand_speak.asp?bs_id=141) offering up reasons why they were a lazy and irresponsible approach to branding, including:
- the potential for Lack of brand consistency
- not demonstrating brand leadership
- missing the opportunity to foster internal brand integration and alignment through the creative development process
i'm thinking the point of view still applies here...
Permalink

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Youth Marketing for the Public Sector - Free Ebook Download

2009-08-31T00:26:00.001-07:00

Special Free Ebook Download

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Ebook Free Download 1

2009-08-27T02:09:00.001-07:00

Free Ebooks

Free Ebook available for download. How to generate a grass roots movement (8 pages)

In markets where young consumer choice can shift between brands according to the prevailing group opinion, the premium for getting it right can be high. That’s why new soda brands have been forced to abandon the traditional marketing rule book written by the masterbrands of Pepsi and Coke and blaze new trails in developing marketing approaches that resonate with youth today.

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How to grow a grass roots movement (free Ebook)

2009-08-27T01:52:00.001-07:00

Free Ebook available for download. How to generate a grass roots movement (8 pages)

In markets where young consumer choice can shift between brands according to the prevailing group opinion, the premium for getting it right can be high. That’s why new soda brands have been forced to abandon the traditional marketing rule book written by the masterbrands of Pepsi and Coke and blaze new trails in developing marketing approaches that resonate with youth today.

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