My top 10 posts of ‘09

As 2009 draws to a close I thought I’d recap with a list of  the top 10 posts (according to you guys) that gained the most traffic on my blog. It seems the posts you guys tended to navigate towards were those that were about how brands should behave in the new media environment when trying to engage youth in conversationas well as learnings from the world’s best youth brands.

Here are the 10 posts (in terms of site traffic) in  2009 for those that haven’t read them.

1. Nike: We don’t do advertising , we do cool stuff (by far and away the most popular post of the year)

2. Levi’s ‘Go Forth’ – Inspiring Generation Optimism

3. Youth want TRIBAL IDEAS – tips on creating a movement

4. Youth are Cyborgs

5. 10 Principles for engaging Teens

6. 10 Observations on how the best youth brands behave

7. Why Red Bull is the world’s best youth brand

8. Youth marketing is about Culture Creation

9. Experimentation is the new Engagement

10. Brand Ecosystems and Participative Branding Comms Model

My top 5 youth ideas for 2009

Well I’m about to log off tomorrow for 2009, back Jan 6th. It may be a little quiet around here for a while. I’ve got some cool ideas that I’ve been working on the past months that will be breaking in early 2010, so I lookforward to putting them out there and seeing what people think.

 It’s been a great year, I hope you’ve found my insights into youth marketing, planning,  social media and Gen C interesting. In my time off I’m going to be thinking about how I get my book on Youth Tribes going, as it’s such a morphing space, but I’m excited about getting into all the different youth subcultures in Australia and understanding their differences and universal commonalities.

For a bit of fun, here are my  5 favourite youth ideas/content deliveries of 2009:

1. Red Bull Project X – Shaun White Secret Halfpipe (clear winner) – Creating a secreet halfpipe for Shaun White to practice new tricks in…in a word AMAZING. RB are the kings of creating mythology around their brand and deliver the storytelling ina simple yet inspiring way. They know that they are far more than an energy drink brand, they are a youth entertainment media brand. No one ‘creates culture’ like RB.

2. Burger King Whopper Sacrifice – brilliant idea which fucked with the establised codes of culture by getting people to ’scarifice’ friends to show their love of the Whopper. It’s so brutally simple and engaging. Just when everyone though FB was about adding mates, Crispin turned things on it’s head and made the world go into sacrifice mode.

3. Levi’s ‘Go Forth’ - superb job of creating a new manifesto for Levi’s and making the  ’Original’ brand position mean something for American youth. This brand idea did a great job of tapping into Generation O (Optimism) which is sweeping across America right now and capturing a relevant mood of global youth.

4. Sprite ‘Reality Remixed’ – Green Eyed World - truly social idea with great follow factor, following the breakout year of a pop hopeful,  Katie –  which in the world of music marketing is absolutely rare…fantastic consumer engagement via the youtube series and Facebook connect interaction, awesome use of technology to make the idea truly social

5. DC Shoes ‘Gymkhana’ videos  – the series of Ken BLock ‘gymkhana’ videos are a youtube phenom, makes the brand feel so authentic and cool when you see KB burning around trailer parks doing tricks in his WRX. DC shoes are smart, they entertain their true believers and the rest flock towards them

Some other cool things that have been quite innovative in engaging youth:

- Fiesta Movement – innovative way to launch a car, try sparking a movement by giving 100 cars away to kids to drive around for a few months…created deep engagement with ‘agents’ and the car was the backdrop to the storytelling. They’re shifting into getting fans to ‘create the 2011′ advertising which worries me, but lets see what happens.

- Halo 3 ODST:  - love a great little ARG which sent Canadian gamers on a trasure hunt across Toronto for VIP access to the launch party…they engaged the true believers and the game sold out like hot cakes.

- V Australia 4320LA (Well done Sudeep and Nick K) – smartest use of ‘Twitter’ for a campaign, although the return leg of 4320Sydney wasn’t as engaging.

- Coke Expedition 206 - sheer scale and audacity of the idea of taking 3 20 somethings around the world for a year to spread ‘Happiness’ in 206 countries is cool…whether there is follow factor is yet to be seen

- Gatorade ‘Replay’ – clever doco created by Gatorade in the US..getting two high school football teams from the 90’s who are super fierce rivals to replay a drawn match. Captivating content and an authentic role for product which is rare in branded content these days, without it feeling forced.

Have a great Christmas/Hannukah and Happy New Year  and am hoping one of my ideas make it onto this type of list of innovative youth marketing ideas/programs.

The future belongs to those who create

Ajaz Ahmed, Chairman of digital agency AKQA recently presented his agencys core beliefs. I’ve pulled some key thoughts from a post from Nicolas Moerman who attended the conference in London. The above Nike + idea is their latest work which is awesome.  His belief is that  ”The future belongs to people who create” which is spot on in the era where ‘doing’ is far more relevant than ’saying’. He spoke about some key trends that are shaping the technology and media landscape – no major new learnings here, but relevant nonetheless:

- On-demand reality is here

- Media fragmentation and ad-clutter everywhere

- Consumers customize and create

- The profound rise of “Channel Me”

- Marketing and product have converged

- Entering the age of perfect information

- Virtual is reality

What I really found interesting was that based on these trends, these are the internal principals guiding the agencies creation of ideas/platforms etc:

- Think the impossible

- It’s good to be first, it’s better to be good, it’s best to be both

- To create the future live fully in the present

- The best advertising, isn’t advertising

- If it doesn’t capture imagination it’s a no go

- Consumers must be able to answer ‘what’s in it for me’

I especially like the idea of ‘living fully in the present’ to create the future. All too often, people are looking to micro consumer trends to generate insights for their ideas , rather than creating the future themselves by bouncing their brands off pop culture and exploiting tensions in culture.

Experimentation is the new Engagement

This is the short presentation I gave at AIMIA (Australian Interactive Media Industry Association) ‘Getting Inside Gen Y’ conference last week. My presentation was titled ‘Experimentation is the new Engagement’ and it was all about how brands today need to continually experiment, play with youth if you will. It’s about creating an interesting brand game, far less about your brands story. It’s about social ideas which spark a rapid mobilisation of youth, and some recent examples of brands that are experimenting with culture – from Red Bull’s Project X (Shaun White secret halfpipe) to Coke’s Expedition 206 to VW Swedens ‘Fun Theory’ social experiments. Enjoy.

Influencer Interview #7: The world of brands and music according to Emily

Got a chance to interview a real music expert and pop culture maven in Emily Copeland – we met the other week and she gave me some great insight into the world of music and some great examples of what brands are doing right to connect with young people (and how they’re fucking up too) in the brand saturated space that is music.  Em  works at MCN and also hosts a music program on FBI radio. Check out her blog here.  She’s got amazingly deep insight into youth culture and how brands and ‘playing’ in the music space.

Em Copeland from OMGwithemily.com youth music guru

Here’s here perspective on brands and music, music tribes and what’s coming up this Summer.

Which brands are doing well to leverage music? Maybe a few different examples

I love seeing brands do something a bit different in music. The ideas of giving away tickets to have an ‘ultimate festival experience’, running an unsigned band competition, and setting up your own branded music event have been done to death. More importantly, there are brands that now ‘own’ these spaces (Festivals – Smirnoff; Unsigned Bands – Tooheys Extra Dry; Branded Music Events – Bacardi) , so it is incredibly difficult for anyone new to try to play in these areas, or to do it better than those existing brands.

 Ted Baker leveraged music well this year, with the creation of the ‘Gig Race’ to promote a new clothing range. Entrants had two weeks to attend as many gigs as humanly possible, whilst blogging and twittering about their experience as they went. Ted Baker used something their consumers were already doing (going to gigs, blogging and twittering) to promote their brand. And more importantly, they found a way to credibly link their brand with music – by having consumers do it for them! Every tweet and blog post that went out in relation to the competition mentioned music and Ted Baker – and came direct from the target demographic. (FYI – the winner was a 29 year old guy from Kent, who went to 27 gigs in 14 days. He now holds the Guinness World Record for most concerts attended!)

 Are there any ‘must do’s’ when considering using a music marketing strategy to engage youth?

There are two major ‘must do’s’ that I would recommend every brand look at before trying to engage youth through music:

MAKE SENSE

You need to do something that makes sense to your audience, in relation to your brand. Just simply deciding that you want to be ‘aligned with music’ isn’t enough. Nike are a great example of a brand that does this well. Nike are all about sport – so rather than trying to put on a gig, or use a band in their advertising, in mid-2008 they teamed up with A-Trak to create a mix to help people “Keep on Running’ – which adds a music element to their sporting brand. A few months back they also helped De La Soul to release their first new album in five years – which was designed to play as a workout soundtrack, and was produced by Flosstradamus. Nike found sneaker wearing musicians, who had massive credibility, and helped them to do their thing (release music), while still retaining their core brand focus (helping people to exercise).

BE DIFFERENT

Don’t just look for trends within your target demographic and try to copy them (like Taco Bell did in the US, when they tried to take an ironic look at white boy hip hop with their ‘Roosevelts’ campaign .  Look to do something unique, or look to support an artist or sound that is emerging (like BMW have done with The Presets and Empire of the Sun http://www.omgwithemily.com/2009/05/bmw-parters-with-empire-of-sun.html). The support of an emerging artist will almost always be looked upon favourably, as everyone knows that these independent artists can’t pay the rent with just hipster cred!

 Youth music tribes.. what tribes are popular at the moment?

Back in 2004, the British Council compiled a document that identified 9 youth ‘tribes’ – Townies, Goths, Nu-metallers, Soulstrels, Indie Kids, Pop Princesses, Clubbers, Grungers and Skaters. The interesting thing about this study was that every tribe was partly identified by a particular musical artist, or a genre of music they were all into.

Music is incredibly important to young people, primarily because it is something they all use to create their own identity. Music also helps define their other choices in life – from who they hang out with, to the clothing they wear, the bars they go to, the media they consume, and even the alcohol they drink.

In Australia, we have seen a rise in the popularity of Indie Kids over the past few years – and the music at festivals has reflected this. There has been a move away from techno and hard house, toward more indie electro sounds at major festivals. Even more traditional ‘rock’ festivals have seen an increased number of indie bands and indie electro acts in the lineup.

You will also find multiple sub-tribes within each tribe. The 9 youth tribes defined in the UK are massive generalisations. If you are looking at identifying youth by the music they listen to, then everyone who listens to electronic music would be a ‘Clubber’. However, when you drill down into the electronic music genres, you get everything from Disco, to House, Jungle, Trance, Nu Rave, and Garage. Then, if you look into sub-genres, you find styles such as Baltimore Club, Industrial Rock, Fidget House, Glitch and 8 bit. It will probably be hard for you to find huge similarities in lifestyle, fashion and speech between someone who passionate about Juke (similar to Booty House – think Kid Sister), compared to someone who is crazy about Psytrance (think something from Infected Mushroom) – even though both styles are in essence ‘electronic’.

 What do you feel will be the bands/artists which will gain traction with Aussie youth this summer?

There is a huge amount of female electro-pop currently hitting the mainstream. From the horrible (Lady Gaga) to the more interesting acts including La Roux, Little Boots, (both of whom we just saw performing around the country as part of Parklife) Ladyhawke and Bat for Lashes. I’m sure these sounds will continue across summer, particularly with Ladyhawke having just received five nominations in the 2009 ARIAs.

There are a few tools that I use to look at current trends in sounds and artists. One is Shazam (see Shazam’s picks for 2009 here: http://www.omgwithemily.com/2009/01/whats-that-remix.html), another is Hype Machine’s ‘popular’ feed. I also RSS feeds from around 150 different music blogs, of all different genres, and from right around the world – and keep an eye on these for hot tracks, and musical trends. Young Aussies are also getting better at supporting local talent, and we are seeing huge support for local artists in both the commercial and indie scenes.

Creating Tribal Ideas for Generation C – my Nokia World presentation

Creating Tribal Ideas for Generation C

Here’s the presentation I gave last week in Stuttgart Germany at Nokia World. They asked me to come and present on how brands are using social media to connect with youth. I spoke mainly about the many different dimensions of Generation C and how social media is shaping their self identity. I also spoke about the key principals brand behaviours you need to adopt when tryign to create a tribal idea – an idea which sparks a rapid mobilisaiton of youth. Click through to slideshare and check the ‘notes pages’ for all my speaker notes which explain some of the points if the images aren’t clear. Had a great time at Nokia World and will be blogging on it this week.

Feedback welcome

Nike: We don’t do advertising, we do cool stuff

We do cool stuff...not advertising

Really interesting article on how Nike approach marketing to youth. Simon Penstridge the UK marketing director has some killer quotes which capture what alot of other youth brands have to start thinking about..it’s the key reason why they are who they are and continue to engage youth in such interesting and deep ways. Here’s some of this thoughts on their evolving communications model/approach, and what they stay true to:

AN UNDYING COMMITMENT TO THEIR CORE BRAND IDEA

“Everything we do is motivated by the fact that we’re here to enable athletes to be even better.”

INSPIRATION AND INNOVATION ARE CORE VALUES

“Innovation comes in the form of our constantly evolving products, Inspiration comes from the way in which we enable consumers to experience these products.”

BE PART OF THEIR LIVES, INFUSE YOUR BRAND INTO THE CULTURAL CONSCIOUSNESS

“We don’t do advertising any more. We just do cool stuff, it sounds a bit wanky, but that’s just the way it is. Advertising is all about achieving awareness, and we no longer need awareness. We need to become part of people’s lives and digital allows us to do that.”

80% PRODUCTION SPEND, 20% MEDIA SPEND

“Some of our best campaigns have been the cheapest to create because they’ve caught the imagination of users and then taken off like wildfire”

INSPIRE CONSUMERS

“We want to inspire consumers to seek out our content this is the model we will be following from now on.”

EVALUATE IN THE REAL WORLD

“You don’t get anything from sitting behind a two-way mirror listening to focus groups, You learn from living and breathing your brand. When anyone in my team comes up with an idea, I tell them go and run it past a kid on a football pitch. If they don’t get laughed at and if they avoid coming across as the kid’s un-cool dad, then they’re probably on the right track.”

EMBRACE A FAIL FORWARD APPROACH

“We’re pushed to take risks in everything we do as long as we’re enabling the athlete to be better, Sure, we’ll get some things wrong but you’ve just got to go for it.”

Simon has clearly got his finger on the pulse and ‘gets it’..more marketers need to take a leaf out of Nike’s book.

Nike and Lance “It’s about you”

I love Lance Armstrong, totally inspired by the guy and just came across the new ‘It’s About you’ campaign to get people behind his 2009 ride in the Tour De France. Built off a nice truth around his motivation to do it for the wider cancer community, inspiring those who have to go through the hardships he went through.  Perfect example of how he’s helped spark a cultural movement who want to belong to the Livestrong tribe. This 60 sec spot gets me, it’s real, raw and true to his spirit. Well done Lance, smart move by Nike to bring back the ‘just do it’ tag, giving it another dimension beyond glossy, hyped up LeBron campaigns. 

Youth want tribal ideas – tips on how to create a movement around your brand

The fundamental emotional need of youth is and always will be BELONGING. It’s hardwired from birth, a primal need to belong to a community, to a tribe. It’s a fundamental form of self expression that is at the core of the human psyche. The growth of social media has turbo charged young peoples ability to connect and be part of global tribes.

The best youth brands understand that youth are desperate to connect with each other, so youth marketing is not about pushing messages onto a target audience of disparate individuals, it’s about inspiring the TRIBE, so they connect with each other. It’s about talking to the WE, not necessarily the ME.

 Tribal marketing in 2009 is about leading and connecting Gen C ‘The Connected Collective’ with ideas and each other, it’s about finding something worth changing and mobilizing a group of likeminded people around it.

Think the Red Bull energy tribe, Apple’s creative tribe, Nike + running tribe, Zoo York’s mischievous skater tribe, Lego’s imagination tribe, Axe’s player tribe,  Roxy’s chic surfer tribe, Wii’s playful tribe,  Threadless’ design tribe – just a few examples of brands that have inspired people to come together and form a tribe around their brand, a community with shared passions, interests.

So, how do you create a tribe around your brand? Here are a handful of thoughts

1. You have to have the balls to create ideas that polarize, ideally AGITATING and DISRUPTING the  STATUS QUO. You have to be a little subversive and not scared to create CHANGE. Unless you spark an interesting conversation, you won’t spark a movement. The biggest mistake youth brands make is trying to appeal to everyone, they end up standing for nothing and falling for everything. Think less about your proposition, and more about your brand point of view or your call to arms.

 2. Gen C are the ‘CONNECTED COLLECTIVE‘, they join tribes for the CONNECTIONS.  They’re dying to mobilize around something interesting.   Think about how you’re letting them connect via web 2.0 platforms and how they can work together around a cause/idea. It’s all about making it easy for youth to find each other and connect. Music festivals have been tapping into these shared ‘connections’ for the last decade and now the gaming world is doing the same with MMORPG’s. 

 3. It’s about leveraging PEOPLE POWER.  Done successfully, the collective becomes your most powerful asset, they’re empowered to spread your idea, to create the movement. Your job is to help facilitate the interactions amongst the tribe and give them something worth talking about, something worth changing, something worth believing in. Politicians and activists have been doing it well the past few years, think Obama, think Al Gore, think One Young World.

 4. Find your brands TRUE BELIEVERS, listen to them then, create utility for them, provide value in the experience and your brand will become magnetic. You only need a 1,000 or so, look at T-Mobile with their flash mobs. Virgin are the kings of seeking out their true believers and always giving them utility, no matter what category then enter.

 5. LEAD THEM, all the great tribes have great charismatic leaders, you create your own brand charisma by showing leadership attitude and staying true to a belief system, committing to a cause. People mobilize around strong people/brands who believe. Red Bull, Nike are the archetype leaders in their respective youth cultures, always appealing to the fringes, but not alienating the masses.

 6. CREATE CULTURE for the tribe. Create something that matters to youth, don’t try and mimic what’s happening now, give them a lens into something new. Create a new sport, create a new way of doing something, EXPERIMENT and don’t be afraid to fail. You’ll get credit for having a go.

 7. TRIBAL IDENTIFICATION is important, you have to create a way of knowing if you’re in or out. Whether it’s badging yourself or an internal point of association, it’s extremely important as tribal brands have followers, not customers. I witnessed this first hand in Austria last week, with Austrian teens plastering their bedrooms with the stickers of their favourite brands, Aussie kids brand their mobiles with stickers of their favourite surf brands.

 8. CONSTANT CONTENT CREATION  – This takes ingenuity and effort over pure big scale production budgets.  Youth brands have to think of their marketing calendars not in quarterly installments, but as an ONGOING STORYTELLING PLATFORM.  It’s less about discrete uniform evolutions of ad campaigns, but about creating interesting narratives youth can follow – think youtube channels that are constantly update with new content, whether that be experiential type stuff or raw stuff. The surf brands are the kings of this, as they see themselves as media businesses, not just surfwear sellers.

Remember tribes exist, your job as a marketer is to help organize and connect these people. Find something worth changing, then create an interesting point of view on it, something fresh, something worth believing in that they’ll want to talk about and belong to.. See, easy?

Nike Running: Run Super Natural a 6/10

The latest campaign from Nike Running: Run Super Natural. It’s a little bit limp (excuse the pun) if you ask me, a few really telegraphed lines ‘I let it all all hang out’ and i feel like i’ve seen this before. Not based on any real human insight, storytelling is quite shit and it’s just not that funny.  In my mind, since Nike + did ‘I am Addicted’ they havent really got into the mind and heart of the runner. In my view is a 6/10 and for Nike that just ain’t good enough.