Month: March 2017

Unfortunately marketing to the youth demographic of our society is seen by some in our industry as an otherworldly skill that only a special few have mastered. With 90% of briefs that agencies receive targeted at this market, we need to have a much better understanding of this audience.

We are all guilty of being a bit too focused on the end goal, our KPI’s, meaning we are constantly looking for that magical ingredient – be that a social media platform, an influencer or a media partnership that will make all the young people instantly share your content online making it go viral, and making you look cool in front of your peers and clients because you ‘get’ the ‘yoof’ of today.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but there isn’t an ingredient or hack or a preferred social media platform that you need to be on to make them interested in your product. What they want is for you to be is real.

How can you as a brand do this? Well here are my five key takeaways from yesterday’s YMS 2017 talks that will help you become a real brand and have a more meaningful relationship with your audience.

1. Master the art of conversation: Become a storyteller

Put simply, young people want brands to talk to them more. Don’t just attend a fresher’s fare or send them a voucher and then just forget about them, keep them engaged and keep talking to them.

This doesn’t mean you should start churning out content for the sake of it across every single channel. You need to ensure that your message and tone are right, and land at the right time, on the right channel for the right people.

A recent survey from Bam UK found that 24% of students weren’t familiar with at least two of the major high street brands, but over half would go on to engage with them later. The first three months are key, as this is where their loyalty builds and sticks.

2. Don’t be a fraud – authenticity is key

Once you’re talking more to your audience, you need to ensure what you are saying is adding value to the conversation and to their lives.

Just as you would in real life, stop and think before you speak. Does your brand have the authority to speak about this topic? If yes then do it; if not, well don’t – it’s that simple.

3. Provide the experience

Part of becoming an authentic, real brand means connecting with your audience in the real world. This is a great way to get your brand message out, but also provide people with a really unique experience that they can connect with.

This doesn’t mean simply visiting a festival and that’s it. Ensuring there is a socially shareable element to the experience is vital. This generation has a FOMO (fear of missing out) and they want their network to see all the unique experiences they have had. So ensuring this has social currency is key to extending your reach organically.

4. Don’t jump ship

“According to the latest data in an industry report x number of 16 to 24-year-olds use x social media platform.” Cue all agencies and brands running onto said platform to engage with their audience.

There are so many channels out there and targeting an audience that is digitally native means you need to carefully consider what you’re doing. Any content (ads included) need to feel native to the platform, with the correct messaging. Don’t create a new social account because all the cool kids are there. Think about whether it’s a relevant platform for your brand and your message, and will this be an always-on strategy or only viable for a one-off campaign.

5. Relax

Brands need to relax the control over their content. Giving it the space to grow and evolve online by co-creation is vital to help ensure it lives longer, is relevant and resonates with the right audience.

Cancer Research understood this with its Stand Up to Cancer campaign and discovered that content created by a third party (creator/ influencer) that they ‘hero-ed’ outperformed their own content. This was because the content created had an added layer of authenticity to it.

Although we keep talking about young people as some kind of an alien market, they aren’t. Yes, they are more digitally savvy than other demographics and more on trend. They are, however, still people who want and actively seek genuine and meaningful connections. Our responsibility is to ensure we do this not just for them but for all our consumers.

Ally Biring was reporting from the recent Youth Marketing Strategy 2017 in London.

This article first appeared in Digital Marketing Magazine.

According to some florists in the UK, winning or being the lucky recipient of a bouquet of flowers was the best way to mark this month’s International Women’s Day. This is clearly missing the point and an example of brands simply cashing in on an initiative designed to highlight the many issues facing women across the globe.

So what can brands to do align themselves with the cause in a believable and ethical way that will help to amplify and support the initiative, while adding kudos and authenticity to their image? Here are some great examples where brands have not just vocalised their support for women’s issues but expressed it where it matters and resonates most – in the real world.

Leading your field

She Means Business – Facebook

This is a subdomain on Facebook’s main social platform, hosting articles, insights and resources to help women grow and promote their own businesses. Facebook is able to talk on this subject with authority due to its paid advertising products. It has added further credibility to this by collaborating with Enterprise Nation (https://www.enterprisenation.com/) – an organisation that will help you start and grow your business, whose founder is Emma Jones MBE. Facebook has also collaborated with another organisations, such as the FSB.org, which covers financial and business advice for SMEs.

The key feature of this site is how it invites you to explore inspiring stories, from NGOs, etc, that will be broadcast through FB Live. Facebook also wants you to get involved by hosting your own live session. The content hosted here will be evergreen and as long as Facebook keeps adding to it, this will become a very valuable resource and business-focused social platform.

Equality for All

Equalizing Music – Smirnoff, Spotify, The Black Madonna, Live Nation, Fabric and more.

Smirnoff has launched a three-year gender equality campaign to mark International Women’s Day. Equalising Music is aimed at establishing gender parity across the music industry. Its particular focus is on electronic music, as only 17% of headliners at electronic festivals were women, according to the figures published by Smirnoff. Further stats showed that only 5% of music producers are women.

Equalising Music’s goal is to double the number of female headliners at major festivals. This campaign is extremely well suited to Smirnoff, which has a long history of positioning its brand alongside the music industry.

#WeSeeEqual – P&G 

P&G has launched its video #WeSeeEqual to advocate gender equality. The video features men and women who are out there in the real world actively defying stereotypes. There is also footage from the FMCG giant’s previous campaigns such as #LikeAGirl (Always) and Raise, which was focused on equal pay for women.

Gender equality isn’t a new topic for P&G, this highlighted in its annual 2016 report its aspiration to build “a world free from gender bias”. Last year, it stole the show at the Cannes Lions Festival launching #unstereotype to draw attention to the plethora of female stereotyping in advertising, backed by global research that showed that this approach meant that brands were actually alienating women rather than attracting and engaging with them. P&G has since implemented #unstereotype and a generally purpose-driven stance across its brand portfolio, registering and uplift in engagement as a result.

Become Whatever You Want

Pretty Curious: EDF

In partnership with Sense, EDF Energy launched its campaign pretty curious to get more girls to study science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) subjects at school five years ago, hosting a series of workshops at schools across the country. It is targeting girls who are between 12 and 15 years old to encourage them to continue their education in these subjects at A-level and beyond. The aim is to address the huge gender imbalance that exists in these areas to create more career opportunities for women and also ensure that is enough talent available for these growing sectors.

If you are brand and looking to get coverage by leveraging the buzz and interest in a conversation that is taking place, you must consider whether your business has a genuine authority to be involved by adding real value to it. The worst thing you can do is trivialising the conversation by commercialising it for your own marketing needs. The purpose bandwagon is here. But don’t simply jump on it. Put together a relevant, authentic strategy and bring it to life in the real world.

Ally Biring is Social and Digital Director at Sense.

This article first appeared in Cream Global.