Wise & Young: The nuances of Gen-Y marketing, branding, advertising, trends, & more

Saatchi & Saatchi CEO Kevin Roberts, no matter what they say about him (good, bad or evil), has a pretty solid and organized concept when it comes to lovemarks. Lovemarks, in plain English, is when a brand goes from being just a brand to something people cherish and respect emotionally.

Lovemarks, in my eyes, are going to become and have already slowly become very important to the youth consumer. The youth want authentic and respectable brands that they can associate themselves with but at the same time not feel like they have sold out. Sold out is a big word for the youth; if your brand has sold out, then in the youth’s eyes, your company is a failure. Just look at Von Dutch (enough said).

For the youth, traditional advertising and trying to get your brand in to the mainstream is the first signs of selling out. That is why I believe companies trying to attract consumers should focus more on their products and less on trying to get their name shouted a hundred-million times during commercial breaks. From talking to other young people, we are tired of seeing the same commercial a second, third, fourth, fifth..etc. time, even if it is funny – it gets old and your brand begins to look ridiculous!

I’m sorry to break it to you, but the youth are not listening to television commercials anymore.

If your brand has money for marketing and is trying to attract consumers, get out of television and go focus on the internet. The internet has a plethora of ways to advertise your company without selling out and if your product is great, the word of mouth will spread like wildfire.

One way to get your brand out there is to sponsor online media that the youth would watch (such as videos, songs, etc). Don’t sponsor every song on a particular site, but have QUALIFIED people pick out the videos and songs that you should sponsor on Yahoo’s Listen.com or on CollegeHumor.com. By doing this you are emotionally and visually connecting your brand to a song or video the youth enjoy, and by doing so, you are slowly but surely telling them that you are a cool and open minded brand.

There are a million over ideas for companies to use the internet to get the youth to respect your brand, but I will save those for another post. In closing, I want to thank Anastasia from YPulse and Yaro from Entrepreneur’s Journey for the links and kind words!