Young Creative Eyes

Defining Youth is as crazy a dream as defining Mumbai. That’s exactly the reason two together define folly.

When we talk youth we think young, fervent, rebel, ambitious, the ones who are not afraid to try something new. That makes them interesting and also very hard to understand but there is always a trail and if we follow that it makes them very predictable in a way. Every new company and brand sees the advantage of targeting the youth, they know that youth are experimental and thus it’s easy to sell them anything that they haven’t seen before but they do sometime ignore the risk of marketing to youth. It’s not very easy to make products and brands very cool or relevant to the taste of youth because taste of youth changes very frequently. Youth are fickle minded and probably why experimental and influential to certain extent. Thus what appeals to them today would not amuse them tomorrow.

Mumbai being the hub of most of the jazz like bollywood, fashion, cricket to name a few, youth in Mumbai are exposed to all sorts of things that are influential in nature. For them brands are more like a reflection of their personality and what they are but mostly it’s a reflection of what they want to be. From having an I-pod or the latest mobile to going to the hippest club wearing the coolest brand, it’s all about showing others that ‘ I know what’s the ‘IN’ thing and what’s not’. But the irony of the situation is that if one girl is seen wearing the new peep toe pumps suddenly everyone is seen wearing one and the girl who starts the craze is generally the hippest girl in her locality or in her college, we can call her the trend setter or the influencer but the fact remains that even she is influenced by either her cousins settled abroad or from reading 10 international fashion magazines or observing celebrities. But what makes her different from others is that she can identify trends more quickly then others and she is the first one to figure out where to get them. Thus it makes her the trendsetter and the one marketer should keep a tab on.

But this is just one side of the coin, these are the easiest market to keep track because they are rich and spends money and there is nothing in their world that is not branded. But then majority of the youth in Mumbai shops from bandra linking road, eats road side frankies and don’t care a damn about whether they use an I- pod or a MP3 player as long as they get music but they would definitely aspire to have all those things. This crowd is a huge market and cannot be ignored but predicting their behaviour is equally difficult cause there is no particular source or way to know them. But what we do know is that they definitely are more influential then the former crowd. They are dreamers and that’s what marketers can use to attract them, make their products the dream product to have but at the same time a dream that is achievable.

With more kids starting to earn at a very young age and becoming independent their disposable income has increased thus attracting more and more brands to target youth because youth are impulsive and so are their purchases. But making them buy a new product is one thing and making them brand loyal is another. Yet marketer believe if we manage to get the youth hooked on to certain brands at a very young age then there is a better chance of them using it even when they are no longer youth. But for that you have to make your brands timeless and let it subtly evolve over a period of time. Brands like MTV and Coca- cola have been able to crack that formula pretty well and thus even after years of brands coming and going they still remain relevant to today’s youth.

Now how do you make a brand that’s relevant to both the categories? Well the secret lies in knowing the obvious and things that are daily for the youth, things that are taken for granted by them. These are the things that needs to be taken care of first. That’s where the real insight lies. Using those obvious insights to know the youth better and use in an amusing way and shock them to the get a reactions like ‘Wow I do the same’ or ‘how cool, I can do that’ or at least ‘wish I could do that’. The reasons why a film like ‘Dil chahta hai’ or ‘Rang de basnti’ worked were because each character was someone youth could easily relate too. You could see how college kids would say I am like ‘Akash’ and I have a friend just like ‘Sid’ (Dil chahta hai characters).

Every thing can be an insight from the way they talk to where they spend most of their time, from the way they plan their best friend’s birthday party, to their over the top reactions and treating each problem as a life and death matter. If a brand wants to capture the real essence of youth it has to realize that what really inspire them is something that they already have.

Youth is a very difficult state of mind to understand, it’s when one is not quite an adult to be allowed an opinion, and not quite young enough to be indulged one. Thus rebellion is the hallmark of the youth. The youth are bright, extremely opinionated, despite the apparent boredom they display, fully-charged up with the current social concerns and a clear view despite being well informed or not of what’s happening around in the world.

However, between them these are not the ones who think in the same way. Some, of course, will be a complete marketer’s delight, gulping heavily advertised colas and eating pizzas and burgers at a birthday parties with their friends. Others may only be aspiring to acquiring even a fraction of such a lifestyle in their later years.

If we have to classify them, it can be said that there are Wannabes, those who show-off, are materialistic, desperate to be a part of a crowd. Then there are Rebels who want to think and do differently and don’t care a damn about what others think and then there are the sincere lot who work hard, are confident, have strong individuality and are full of aspirations and have every thing chalked out.

But amongst them though they have a bunch of weird notions and takes on relationships, unlimited career options and tons of friends with some being the ones since pre-school and some being the ones that they met a week before at a friends birthday party.

“What’s In” may change everyday. Rang De Basanti was a protest against the society that youth inherited but ironically very soon Munnabhai is cool too, and Gandhigiri is now the way to go.

What distinguishes the youth of this generation is the fact that they wish to belong and still wish to stand out from the crowd. They exhibit a strong need to be accepted by their peers and need parental approval of their choices and be reminded that they are making their own decisions even though they are highly influential.

All the things that are important to them influence them. Wannabes or rebels, friends, family and celebrities, all play an important part in their lives. Whether positive or negative, they have opinions about all the three and what others think about them equally matters to them.

For youth people who understand them are their friends, who they trust and depend upon, celebrities are someone who fascinates them, who they aspire to be and parents are someone they genuinely wish could understand their point of view but still care for the most.

Entertainment for them, from any source is welcome. But their idea of entertainment keeps changing. For them bunking college and chit chatting in the canteen, watching movie every Friday, gossiping about celebrities and bitching about others is something of their interest for sure.

Youth can be exciting and full of energy. And yet, one wonders if marketers share the same excitement about marketing to youth. So how is a marketer to predict what will appeal to these unpredictable lot and how will he promote his products? The answer to this would be if the marketers stop predicting the fashion and trend. They do not attempt to lead the consumer but follow diligently. They identify the opinion leaders and understand what’s hot with them. But the critical thing to do would be to let go of the trend when others are picking it up. After all, if you’re really with it, by now you ought to have identified the next hot trend and work on that.

Some very global trends catch on very fast, while others are uniquely Indian. Today’s niche can become tomorrows mainstream.