Talking to Generation Next – the Challenges of Communicating with Young People

Young people are crucial for brands

We all know that getting your message across to young people can be tough. Stop the average 15-year-old in the street and you'll find a mass of contradictions. One minute you'll be looking blank as they have hysterics about Justin Timberlake getting Punk'd (you do, like, watch MTV don't you?) the next they will be holding an informed discussion about sustainability. But stopping the average 15-year-old in the street in itself can be a challenge for brands – just how do you find a way of talking to young people to find out what they are into, and what will push their buttons? Before brands can have a relationship with young consumers, they need to have that kind of conversation. Young people are crucial for brands – they not only have more cash than previous generations, but they are also the mature consumers of tomorrow, and habits and opinions formed as young adults can last a lifetime.

The picture is more complicated because youth culture is not just associated with physical youth, as kids gain maturity quicker and thirtysomethings are clinging on to the last vestiges of immaturity. Compare two guys - a 14-year-old and a 32-year-old. A quick rummage round their bedrooms will reveal some striking similarities: Xbox, skateboard, crumpled Levi's, and a Missy Elliot album. Scratch the surface, however, and while the boy is worrying about fitting in with the skate kids, the man is thinking about buying a house.

With massive media fragmentation, however, reaching a young target audience - whoever they are - can be extremely difficult with traditional public relations techniques. Non-traditional media, including fanzines, web sites, email newsletters and sponsored events such as film screenings, club nights or stunts are all being used successfully to reach young people. The targeting has got to be spot-on, though - young people are very sensitive to brand communication that is slightly, embarrassingly, off the mark.

Young people are also much more market savvy consumers now, since they have been exposed to branding almost from birth and have learnt how to filter brand communications. As a result they view marketing as entertainment, paid for with a couple of seconds of their precious attention. The best way to get around these problems of communicating with young people is to get them to influence each other. From clothes, to behaviour and attitudes, they are all influenced by small groups of individuals, and these are key to a youth strategy. Obvious style leaders are celebrities like David Beckham but there are also many heroes in micro communities who wield powerful levels of influence, such as the local DJ.

But until you have that initial conversation with your target audience of young people, you’re not going to know who their style leaders and influencers are, what they are into and what is definitely so five minutes ago. The key to successful youth marketing is not only to keep on top of who and what is hot - a 24/7 job - it's about understanding the emotional stuff that drives young people. It’s not so much a question of being close in age to the targets as being willing and energetic enough to keep working at understanding the market.

The best advice I can give to anyone planning youth campaigns is to go and talk to young people. But how do you get that initial contact with this hard-to-reach group? That’s a difficult one, and depends on individual products and services. If young people are bypassing traditional media and marketing channels, you have to go out and look at what they are producing themselves. What are they writing about in weblogs? If they are creating their own events, like club night or sports events, what’s the style of the posters and photography they are using? What are they wearing? You have to go out onto the street and take photographs – this can’t be done from an office.

Focus groups can be useful, but you have to accept that what you will find out is limited. As soon as you put a group of young people in an office with a one-way glass mirror, it warps things – you need to create an informal environment where your targets can feel relaxed. Focus groups are best for the things you can’t simply observe on the street – thought processes and emotional drivers. Above all, focus groups have to be organised professionally, not cobbled together, and the person picking the subjects has to really know what they are doing, or the exercise is pointless.

Reaching this group is only going to get harder – a banner or sponsorship is not going to be enough as they are developing a sponsorship filter. They want events that give them a voice, not events that are merely a voice for a brand. Young people are not so much cynical about marketing as accepting, but they want marketing to do something for them. They don’t just want to see a banner of their favourite trainer brand at an event – they want to be given a pair, and if you don’t do it then another brand will.

Young people are getting spoiled, and unless you are very clever, marketing to them is going to get more and more expensive. Communicators targeting young people need to push themselves to see young people as individuals. They are capable of being shockingly appalling and inspirationally enthusiastic, incredibly conservative and ultra radical. And usually that's just in the space of a five-minute conversation.

By Dan Pinch, account manager, SLAM, London.

SLAM is Weber Shandwick's youth marketing unit based in London and Paris with specialist consultants throughout Europe.

SLAM produces a monthly trendspotting ezine. To sign up, please visit the loop section of www.webershandwick.co.uk/slam.