1. Social Creative - Unless your idea is social by nature, you're pretty much
dead in 2010. Brands need to stop thinking about ‘big campaign ideas' and think more
about Ideas being socially creative in how they engage young people. As always, youth
are attracted to ideas where they see a new reality or a new truths, but now
it's about connecting members of the tribe in new and interesting ways.
2. Influence - Influence will be a key buzzword for youth marketing in 2010.
Marketers now understand that everyone online has a platform/amplifier to
create his or her own wave on influence. Brands which make members of their
communities more influential by way of exclusive content, special rewards etc,
will gain traction with young people. It's all about giving youth status within
their tribe.
3. Culture Mashing - The best ideas always mash together two
unexpected cultural elements to create a new reality for people. Culture
mashing' taps into Gen
C's need for surprising spontaneous experiences that occur when they least
expect it. One example was ‘Cabbieoke'
for Telstra which turned the most painful part of a young person's night
(the expensive cab ride home) into the best part, by mashing a free cab ride
with a random karaoke performance.
4. Experimental - Being experimental and taking a few calculated
risks every year has to be part of a brand's behavior. Red Bull is the king of
being experimental by pushing the limits of human performance. Their latest
idea, Red
Bull Stratos is collaboration with Felix Baumgartner to break the sound
barrier while free falling from 120,000 feet. Both Red Bull and Nike both know
that not every initiative they put into the market will be successful, but they
have a Fail Forward approach and continue to innovate. Try bouncing two
different cultural elements together and build off your brand truth.
5. Intrigue - Young people have a huge appetite for intriguing new ideas. Being
interesting is important, but being intriguing is critical. Your litmus test
for youth is them saying I'd never thought of that. Doritos is
continually intriguing youth through Hotel
626 and Asylum 626 as part of Snack
Strong productions.
6. Blurred realities - Alternate reality experiences like Nike
True City which uses mixed reality to provide customer utility, is here to
stay. Whether it's actual utility or purely entertainment value like Adidas' Originals
game, brands are creating mixed reality ideas exponentially in 2010.
7. Empowerment to Generosity - The "you can make a difference brand" bandwagon
has been around and will continue in 2010 as brands look to empower young
people through social media platforms. Already this year, we've seen One Young
World in London and Pepsi's Hit Refresh
campaign. Youth brands might consider brand behavior that's about
‘generosity' within the community at micro level (how you can help out your
close friends with the help of a brand?)
8. NOW-ism - Young people are the Real Time Generation with
expectations of real time access to information and creativity everywhere they
go. Immediacy is a must; they are über-connected to everything so demand ideas
they can play with and put their own spin on. If it's not live, it's pretty
much forgotten the next time the Facebook status feed rolls over.
9. Collaboration - Brands that engage young people in ideas that create mutual
value will benefit in 2010 -- treat youth as partners in production and
modulation of ideas. They want to be the media so make it easy for them to
share your message/brand experience. Collaboration isn't new, but it will
become more mainstream as brands understand the need for youth involvement in
all facets of the brand.
10. Agitation - Agitation is a necessity for youth brand behavior in
2010. BK's Whopper Sacrifice and Diesel's
Be Stupid are 2009 examples of brands agitating. It's about lighting a fire
in culture that gets a fresh conversation going. It's about taking a look at
culture's set of rules, and seeing how a brand might shake up the status quo.
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