Is the solution to improve India’s economic downturn in the hands of its youth? Possibly, considering how well-connected, informed, tech-savvy and sensible they seem to be. Shobhana Nair analyses how brands - both mass and youth-centric - can cater smartly to this young mass majority
Here’s a little number crunching exercise for you. According to industry estimates, every third person in any city in India is aged between 18 and 21. India is set to be the world’s youngest country in the year 2020, with 64% of its population being within the working age group. In seven years, the median individual in India will be 29 years old, making India the youngest country in the world.
Considering these statistics — and using resources that are easily accessible to youth — can you calculate the possible traction and the number of possibilities for brands to reach out to this new mass majority?
Brands are increasingly realizing that youth are the driving force of the country’s economy, more so if they keep up with their spending patterns and constant thirst for better, improved products and experiences.
But how can brands better connect with a young audience that’s spoilt for choice, and has everything available at their fingertips? “If we can embed ourselves in their ecosystem, there are more chances of reaching out to them,” suggests Aditya Swamy, EVP and Business Head of MTV. “Earlier, it was a bull’s eye formula — aim and target. Now, it’s like a machine gun, where you’ve got to fire all around the target board, to ensure that they get the point.”
YOUTH MARKETING ROUNDTABLE: WHAT SHOULD BRANDS DO TO GRAB THE ATTENTION OF THE YOUTH?
Key challenges for youth-centric brands
Firing around the target board may sound like the ideal foolproof plan. However, there are certain key challenges that brands need to surpass, before even beginning to design their core marketing strategy. Rameet Arora, Senior Director Marketing, Corporate Communication, Menu Management at McDonald’s India, HRPL, lists these as follows:
Does your brand offer good price as well as convenience? “Youth tend to expect a lot and at arm’s length, especially in terms of convenience and affordability.”
Are you preaching or being direct? “They don’t wait to listen to what you have to say, as they have access to so much information. They are also actually choosing to whom they should listen to, which changes the paradigm a lot.”
Are you as ‘globally aware’ as they are? “They are global citizens which makes them one step ahead of you always in their levels of awareness, knowledge, and interaction with the categories in which your brand exists. In a way, such consumers create opportunities too.”
To conquer all three, experts suggest these strategies for brands who want to be in the youth’s circle of attention.
1. Give innovation a go
Blame it on the goldfish attention span or the constant drive to try new things, youth love being different and easily lean towards things/experiences they haven’t seen or tried out before. In a scenario where the market is over-flooded with brands having similar features, getting their attention with innovation might just do the trick. The Japanese free messaging app LINE, recently introduced in India, launched a unique sticker feature, which allows users to send large-sized character pictures with a tap of a finger; so this simplifies the process of expressing their emotions. The characters include LINE’s own characters and a variety of famous caricatures from Disney, Hello Kitty and Iron Man. Jun Masuda, LINE’s chief strategy and marketing officer, claims that these characters are especially loved among Asian youth, accelerating the app’s growth in many regions.
2. Rope in influential youth icons
Catchphrases, whacky advertisements and youthful, relatable, influential faces help develop a better brand memory among youth. Some of the most successful youth brand associations have been John Abraham with Reebok, Anushka Sharma with Canon and Ranbir Kapoor with Pepsi and Lenovo. “Since our key TG is the youth, our association with Ranbir works well for us,” explains Shailendra Katyal, Director – Consumer Business, Lenovo India. “Signing him on is in line with our brand philosophy ‘For Those Who Do’. Leveraging a popular personality like Ranbir for the brand helps us build a stronger connect with millennials who are tech-savvy.”
3. Promise value for money, not brand loyalty
Celebrity endorsements may help brands in achieving brand recall to a certain extent. But expecting brand loyalty only because of that celebrity — or for any other reason for that matter — is a non-existent empty concept among young adults. Kavin Bharti Mittal, Head of Product and Strategy, Bharti Soft Bank, the company behind the messaging app hike, believes in the philosophy of constantly innovating both in terms of communication and product delivery to find resonance with our current and prospective user base. With hike, we’re seeing a healthy repeat user rate and all our efforts are targeted to retain and add more users.”
According to K Ramakrishnan, President – Marketing, Café Coffee Day, brand loyalty among youth needs to be defined differently. “Youth may be open to trying out new features of a product, say for instance, only if they are happy with the experience or even the consistent performance of the brand. Also, if your end goal is that your brand should be the only one your audience should engage with, then that is expecting too much. Consumers should be a part of those brands that they are comfortable with, and your brand having a higher share is a fair expectation.”
Several studies reveal how today’s youth will only stick to brands that are worth their money, whether they’re on a budget or keen to splurge. “Value is not low prices, cheap prices or affordable prices,” explains Rameet Arora. “It’s what I get versus what I pay, and how much time I spent to get it, because time is as precious as money. Youth today are after good value and it is unfair to say that they don’t have the budget.”
4. Listen to their ‘likes’, ‘tweets’ and reviews
In India, 51% of Internet users are aged between 18 and 24 years, as per the Mobile Internet Consumer – India 2013 report produced by MMA & Vserv.mobi. Digital media and social networks like Facebook and Twitter allow youth to get access to real-time information and be connected on the go. For brands too, the benefits are plenty — the media is cost effective, the message reaches their audience instantly and the feedback can be as instant too. Nikhil Sharma, Director of Marketing, Perfetti Van Melle, also believes that brands can empower youth by sharing the right information at the right time. He also recommends giving preference to online PR. “Brands can provide their products to popular bloggers with big reader audiences, hoping for favourable review, and hence influence key opinion leaders to take the story forward.”
5. Get mobile friendly
A recent study by Neilsen India concluded that there was a 22% spike in sales of smartphones, mostly thanks to young adults aged between 16 and 18 years. However, there is a big gap between what youth can consume and afford, not just with devices, but also with accessing paid content and even staying connected with their peers and common interest groups. “The number one thing that’s relevant to youth is people — being in touch with their friends is important,” explains Viral Oza, Marketing Director at Nokia India Pvt Ltd. “Hence, with the Nokia Lumia, the first thing you see is People Hub, which connects the consumer to his/her social network.”
Brands can use this gap to encourage higher engagement by producing content that can be accessed through mobile phones, however simple of complex. What kind of content? Atul Hegde, CEO, Ignitee Digital, recommends games and apps. “90% of young audiences has come on to the internet through their mobile. ‘Gamification’ is a new ‘concept 7’ where engagement levels will be high. After which, apps are becoming more important.”
Kesavan Kanchi Kandadai, CEO, Tangerine, explains how the concept of SoLoMo — Social, Local, Mobile — which can help brands leverage their presence on various mobile as well as digital platforms. “In social, it is all about community, co-creation and personalization. ‘Local’ means using targeted information like someone looking for information about a restaurant in Delhi. With Mobile, we need to be able to provide that information for the mobile consumer when he is on the move.” Bharat Rajamani, Associate Director & Solution Champion, MARS, EY, recommends an interesting marketing tactic called Bluecasting or Bluetooth marketing. “This allows marketers to beam advertisements directly to the mobile screens via Bluetooth technology. In the coming years, we may see more such innovative marketing ideas gaining ground.”
While mobile does present brands with the golden opportunity of instant, better mass engagement, the funding required to create mobile-friendly content is still a matter of debate in the boardroom for most brands. “Spends in Mobile is a percentage of a percentage, since mostly mobile marketing is considered as a subset of digital marketing,” observes Madan Sanglikar, Co-founder and MD, AD2C. “Overall, the budget is about 1% or lesser. The categories that are leading the trend are, obviously handset manufacturers, telcos, entertainment and fast food.”
6. Honesty and humour: The best policies
At the end of the day, all the brand needs to ask themselves is one question: Am I being honest? Considering how youth are smart enough to tell the difference between what’s real and what’s fluffed, realistic campaigns that talk sincerely about life, work and relationships tend to achieve better recall than those where the heroine gets won over because the hero drinks a particular beverage or wears a certain pair of jeans. Aditya Swamy agrees too, however he believes throwing in a little good-natured, timely humour to bring home the message, works like a charm too. “Brands that are able to have a sense of humour will be able to connect better,” he asserts. “No matter how serious a product you are, if I get a smile on my consumer you will always have an upper hand.”
YOUTH MARKETING MANTRAS OF ADMEN
BOBBY PAWAR,
Director And Chief Creative Officer – South Asia, Publicis Worldwide
1. Older people who let their experience age them shouldn’t be allowed to work on youth brands. But people who are inherently curious, non-judgemental and young-at-heart give a different dimension to the campaign. After which, young people can be brought into the teams by letting them have their say and use the older people’s experience at the edges of the idea to make it elastic.
2. Brands try to be who they are not and they are caught out. Find a common value that is a part of your DNA and share that with the youth.
3. Don’t be conservative in the execution. You can’t have a youth brand idea and mediocre execution.
4. Be open to criticism and act on it. Young people are willing to work with you if you improvise, as they know their friends aren’t perfect.
5. Borrow from youth popular culture and add to it. If it is buzzy in their culture, then the chances are that you will be cool.
(Bobby Pawar has worked on several campaigns targeted at the youth including Pepsi’s ‘Oh Yes Abhi’ and Set Max’s ‘Sirf Dekhne Ka Nahi’ for IPL.)
SANTOSH PADHI
Co-Founder & Chief Creative Officer, Taproot India
1. Find new ways to entertain them. They are much smarter and intelligent than you think. Never underestimate them.
2. Don't sell a product or a service to them. Sell them a dream.
3. Don’t tell them what they need to do and how to do things. Tell them what has to be done and they will do it their way.
4. They change their girlfriends and boyfriends overnight. Make sure you don't bore him with the same campaign for too long.
5. Give them what they like. They will not change their way for communication for you.
(Santosh Padhi’s agency Taproot has created many successful hit campaigns like ‘Change The Game’ during 2011 World Cup for Pepsi, and ‘Har Friend Zaroori Hai’ and ‘Jo Tera Hai Wo Mera Hai’, both for Airtel.)
Change: Good for youth?
Change is the only constant, especially when it comes to today’s youth. That reflects in their attitudes towards brands, technology, education, relationships, anything that contributes to or alters their persona. To understand how change really affects the way they think, behaveor act, IMPACT tied up with DraftFCB+Ulka’s Cogito Consulting and spoke to this target group. This is what they had to say.
Periodic self-renewal and surprising presentation of self is ‘In’
“I change my look every six months…I love to try out new things.” “We get in and out of relationships sooner than our older siblings or friends.”
I must be cool
“To me, a person with a pleasant personality and capable of solving problems is cool.” “If I am not updated with the latest gadgets, seasons of shows, movies, songs, cars, etc. my friends will think I am not cool enough.”
My stuff reflects who I am
“My friends are going to judge me based on the clothes I wear, the phone I use…so I have to be up-to-date with the latest trends.” “If I use a Nokia 1100, my friends will think I belong to the Stone Age and they will treat me like an outcast.”
What I own or wear should make me look unpredictable or unique
“I hate it if I see another girl in my college wearing the same dress as me.” “At the end of the day, my colleagues and friends should ask me where I got my clothes or gadgets from…”
Unable to relate with content on Hindi GECs
“In this show, the husband is taking his mother’s permission to take his wife out to a movie. What era do they live in!” “There are no good Hindi sitcoms on TV. The last good show was Sarabhai Vs Sarabhai. Everything else has the same old saas-bahu drama.”
Brand recall through sports and fitness
Almost 75% of Yamaha’s consumers constitute youth. The brand’s mission is to give their consumers a sense of ‘Kando’, a Japanese word for the simultaneous feelings of deep satisfaction and intense excitement that we experience when we encounter something of exceptional value. Participation in sporting and racing activities to attract like-minded consumers is one initiation the brand has undertaken. “We are active promoters of Motor Sports in India and have been hosting the R15 One Make Race Championship for the past four years as a part of the National Racing Championship,” says Roy Kurian, VP, Sales & Marketing, Yamaha Motor India Sales Pvt Ltd. “Our aim is take motorcycle racing to the next level in India by encouraging all young racing enthusiasts to come forward and participate in this championship.”
Erick Haskell, Managing Director, Adidas Group India, at the time of announcing Reebok’s association with John Abraham, had said, “He has inspired Indian youth to inculcate fitness as a part of their lifestyle. We want to further accelerate the same through our association with him, our exceptional product offering, multiple retail touch points and innovative marketing.”
ENGAGING CAMPAIGNS BY YOUTH BRANDS
ESPN Cricinfo
The campaign: During the ICC Champions Trophy, the website tied up with Hyundai Motor India to unveil the CricJockeys contest — a dream opportunity for cricket fans to turn commentators.
The results: The contest received more than a million views in three weeks on web and mobile platforms. The social impressions on the Hyundai India page for CricJockey stand at close to half a million.
Thums Up
The campaign: As a part of the launch of its ‘Toofani’ campaign, Thums Up previewed its new TVC
to Salman’s fan base of more 10 million people on Facebook and other Digital platforms. A new mobile game was also launched featuring a Thums Up truck stuck in traffic, as shown in the TVC.
The results: This campaign registered over 26, 000 likes, 1,300 shares and over 8,27, 000 views.
Starbucks
The campaign: To celebrate the launch of Starbucks’ second store in Delhi, the brand installed an innovative digital hoarding which displayed live tweets of consumers on their passion for coffee. The Facebook app also allowed fans share their love for coffee. The best entries also got a chance to be invited to the store opening.
The results: This campaign, which ran between February and March, 2013 increased 35% of Facebook
fans on Starbucks India page.
YOUTH-CENTRIC INITIATIVES OF MASS BRANDS
Tata Housing
The campaign: To promote the new La Montana township, Tata Housing created the La Tomatina Festival Facebook app, inspired by Spain’s Mediterranean lifestyle (which also happens to be La Montana township’s main USP). Through the app, users could choose between a choice of seven tomatoes with various attributes such as super cool, adorable, stylish, etc, to ‘hurl’ at their friends on Facebook.
The results: The project received more than 1,200 valid leads through its digital enquiry page in October 2010. Of the total 200 units sold in Talegaon, La Montana sold 143 in that month.
Mia Collection from Tanishq
The campaign: To promote the new gold jewellery collection Mia 3.0, the brand ran a design contest called ‘My Expression’ on various social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and on the brand’s blog page. The brand urged people to submit their jewellery designs online. The winning designs would be incorporated in the new collection.
The results: The contest saw 3,000 participants, out of which the brand selected 10 entries to be officially included in the brand’s new collection. A total of 12 pieces were designed by the winners.
Himalaya Herbals
The campaign: The Himalaya #WohDost social media contest was conceptualized as a Friendship Day activity. A Facebook app was installed on the brand’s page to share statements like “#WohDost that you can always count on”, “#WohDost who makes you smile a lot”, etc, and users tagged their friends to
these comments based on the likeness.
The results: The campaign resulted in over 300 entries on Facebook and the brand pageorganically gained 365 fans in 72 hours.
“A recent survey by ASSOCHAM revealed that over 85% of urban working class prefers to invest in real estate as it can fetch them guaranteed, higher returns. And in time, youth will emerge as the most important segment in this market.” RAJEEB DASH, Head of Marketing, Tata Housing
“Every piece of this collection is designed to cater to the taste of young, working adults. Each piece is stylish, chic, light-weight and mostly weighing between 14 and 18 karats; so it’s pocketfriendly too.” DEEPIKA S TEWARI, General Manager, Marketing-Jewellery Division, Tanishq
“To create wider awareness about our skin-care products, Himalaya Herbals decided to reshape and extend their brand communication to youth, by increasing our activities on digital media.” RAJESH K, Business Head-Consumer Products Division, The Himalaya Drug Company
TV TARGETS YOUTH
AXN
The campaign: To promote the new season of the show Supernatural, AXN tied up with two college fests, Malhar and Umang, in Mumbai and created an ‘Indulgence Lab’ for fans of the show’s main characters the Winchester brothers, by pitting fans of Dean against those of Sam. Several games were organized where winners won t-shirts and tattoos inspired by the show.
The results: More than 2,000 students participated.
“Today’s youth is looking for drama. Our core audience, which is mostly youth, is looking for that as well as international, aspirational content.” SUNIL PUNJABI, Business Head, AXN Networks India
Bindass
The campaign: To promote the new show Yeh Hai Aashiqui, the channel launched a Facebook app called ‘F.L.A.M.E.S.’, based on a popular love test game. The app predicts the type of relationship you will have with the person whose name you enter.
The results: The cumulative impressions generated through Facebook posts about the show are approximately more than 54 lakhs.
“Youth is more a mindset than a mere age descriptor. Much like brand Bindass, youngsters today are fun, frank and fearless, and can be best described as a ‘remixed generation’. This is reflected clearly even in their entertainment choices.” INDRAJIT RAY, Executive Director, Content, Media Networks, Disney UTV
Feedback: shobhana.nair@exchange4media.com
