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

I’ve just recently discovered the WOMMA’s Word of Mouth blog, which I must say is amazing – so check it out. The advice on the WOMMA blog holds up to exactly what I’ve been reiterating on here. The youth, just like the general population but more extreme, are waiting for great things (products, services, sales, promotions, etc.) to talk about with their peers. When you present them with these great, unique, or amazing things, they will talk up a storm.

With the internet, youth dialogue with their peers is accelerated extremely quickly. For example, in one year both MySpace and Facebook were able to add millions of youth accounts with zero advertising dollars spent, no promotions, and no annoying pop-ups. This is why above all, companies need to stop spending huge sums of money on advertising on the youth generation and funnel that money in to making their product better in all aspects. It doesn’t mean cutting advertising entirely; it is the brand’s job to find a balance between effective affordable advertising and an increase of product research and development

Mentioned on the WOMMA Word of Mouth blog was a great example of how an organization trying to attract the youth market could apply this technique. They used the Armed Forces as an case in point to show the ridiculous amount of money they spend on marketing and advertising to enlist new recruits. The Armed Forces could simply slash that budget in half and put the money in to higher enlistment fees which I know for sure would entice more youth to sign-up.

Give us value, give us something we can fill was the right move; not canned messages replayed over and over again that don’t resonate with us - which I believe the Armed Forces has been doing and will be doing for years to come.