mobileYouth Economy: 100 Trends for 2012. Part 1 of 4
1. 100 Trends that define Youth Mobile Culture in 2012
Part 1
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youth marketing mobile culture since 2001
flickr: whatmegsaid
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2. flickr: Andrew Stawarz
#1
2 Key Drivers of Behavior
How will you help me belong?
How will you help me be significant?
These are the questions young customers are asking of you.
Answer these questions and all else becomes detail.
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youth marketing mobile culture since 2001
2
3. #2
3H (Homes, Hangouts, Hideouts)
In the mobileYouth Economy insights are a function of social
Context. Market research “communities” aren’t the answer.
If you survey or study youth outside of the 3H you end up
with artificial results. Real insight comes from immersing
research in the context of real world peer group dynamics.
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youth marketing mobile culture since 2001
3
4. #3
3 Key Change Agents
Not every young person across all age groups and gender differences is
actively optimizing products and services to enable their social lives.
A small group of young people sets out to discover social currency. We
call them Change Agents. They are the 10% of the mobileYouth
Economy that influence the remaining 90%. The 3 Key Change Agents
are Teenage Pirates, Cashless Innovators and Disruptive Divas.
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youth marketing mobile culture since 2001
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5. #4
3 Key Pain Points
Isolation, Risk and Loss of Control. Pain Points are the key
drivers of Youth Churn and prerequisites of negative Shared
Experiences. The 3 Key Pain Points drive customer churn in the
youth market. Minimizing the 3 Key Pain Points is a key youth
acquisition and retention strategy in the mobileYouth Economy.
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youth marketing mobile culture since 2001
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6. #5
90-10 Rule
Focus on the 10% (the fans) that influence the 90% (the mass
market). In the modern Attention Economy, youth are more
influenced by the Earned Media of these vocal influencers.
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youth marketing mobile culture since 2001
6
7. #6
Age of Differentiation
Between 2000 and 2009, mobile brands employed Creative Agencies to
differentiate their products based on features and tariffs. This Big Idea
Marketing approach no longer works in the current Age of Discovery.
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youth marketing mobile culture since 2001
7
8. #7
Age of Discovery
In today’s mobileYouth Economy, youth are discovering products without the
help of agencies. Change Agents replace media as the key market Influencers.
In the Age of Differentiation, Creative Agencies manufactured Context
through a brand story known as the Big Idea. In the Age of Discovery, youth
define their own context by discovering the Social Currency in the product.
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youth marketing mobile culture since 2001
8
9. #8
Anti-Social Business
The Loudspeaker (broadcast) model of Customer Experience -
Customer Service, Marketing and Innovation – was popular during
the Age of Differentiation but is increasingly ineffective in the
Age of Discovery. Company culture is focused on short-term
results exerting Cultural Pushback when required to change.
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9
10. #9
Arrival
Disruptive Divas co-opt brands of the
establishment e.g. Blackberry, Burberry and Louis
Vuitton as milestones of social success. In periods
of social change, particularly when the change is
experienced by youth and/or gender, people seek
out Social Tools to both reclaim Social Space and
demonstrate social Arrival.Arrival behavior is
common in emerging markets and minorities in
developed markets.
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youth marketing mobile culture since 2001
flickr: Andrew Stawarz
10
11. #10
Attention Economy
In communicating with youth,
attention is your biggest cost. In the
modern Attention Economy, you
cannot buy youth attention anymore,
you need to earn it. No more “big
idea”.
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youth marketing mobile culture since 2001
flickr: Andrew Stawarz
11
12. #11
Authority Gradient
The Authority Gradient is the distance
between decision makers and insight.
Companies that rely on design and
Creative Agencies, rather than
Immersion research, for their main
source of insight have steep Authority
Gradients that expose them to error.
Steep Authority Gradients are
common in Anti-Social Business.
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youth marketing mobile culture since 2001
12
13. #12
Beachheads
Build your fans a home: community, project or cause.
House the Dialogue and allow them to create their own
Context. Connect them with each other and step back.
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14. flickr: elizabeth hudy
#13
Belonging
One of the 2 Key Drivers of Youth Behavior. Youth want to
belong to something - peer group, subculture, movement or
team. Belonging is most prominent in younger segments - teens
and into early student life - before fading in young adulthood.
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14
15. #14
The End of Big Idea
The traditional method of marketing and design thinking. A
Creative Agency pitches the Big Idea to the brand as a story to
create new Context for the product. Big Ideas are centralized,
requiring extensive investment of resources. Big Idea marketing
leads to Anti-Social Business. Loudspeaker marketing overrides
the customer’s own narrative and alienates key influencers.
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youth marketing mobile culture since 2001
flickr: Andrew Stawarz
15
16. flickr: dene miles
#15
Bottom-Up Model
The direction of Customer
Experience - Customer Service,
Pr o d u c t D e v e l o p m e n t a n d
Marketing. In the Bottom-Up
model, experience begins at the
grass-roots, with the customer and
treats youth as partners rather
than Destinations.
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youth marketing mobile culture since 2001
16
17. #16
Brand Ambassador
Brand Ambassadors were conceived
by creative agencies in an attempt
to reach out to young people and
generate earned media for brands.
A Brand Ambassador program
focuses on paying young people to
talk distribute freebies to friends.
Most brand ambassadors tend to be
college students who join the
program to add to their resume.
Brands need a Fan Engagement
program where they identify and
engage fans who love the brand.
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youth marketing mobile culture since 2001
flickr: austinanomic
17
18. #17
Brand Democracy
Are you using new media to find
new way to tell your brand story or
are you using it to help customers
tell theirs? When youth look at
your marketing the question
they’re asking is “where am I in
this story?” Brand democracy
means empowering youth to tell
their story.
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youth marketing mobile culture since 2001
18
19. #18
Brand Heatmap
Visual dashboard of the mobileYouth SMART index
used for predictive planning. The Brand Heatmap
shows where mobile brands have their strongest
pockets of influence within the youth market.
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youth marketing mobile culture since 2001
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20. flickr: chicagolau
#19
Brand Management
Old school marketing popular in the
Age of Differentiation. Telling the
brand story in a big way using the Big
Idea. Using new media to expand the
brand’s reach and awareness rather
than empowering youth with Brand
Democracy.
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youth marketing mobile culture since 2001
20
21. #20
Cashless Innovators
One of the 3 Key Change Agents in the mobileYouth
Economy. Mostly college/university age students.
Cashless Innovators form niche social groups with a
knowledge barrier to entry. Cashless Innovators are
major contributors to the mobileYouth Economy in
product development - SMS, Facebook, MP3s - and
are key targets for Social Business partnerships.
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youth marketing mobile culture since 2001
flickr: aramolara
21
22. #21
Churn
n the mobileYouth Economy, Retention is
the new acquisition. Churn is the mother
of all costs. Companies with low loyalty
rates (often Anti-Social Businesses) will
have the lowest operating margins, the
lowest Influence and the lowest usage
levels for new product launches.
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youth marketing mobile culture since 2001
22
23. #22
Co-Creation
If youth aren’t part of the process you might as
well throw your marketing budget down the
drain. The further upstream you can involve
youth in your product development and
marketing process the more effective it becomes.
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youth marketing mobile culture since 2001
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24. #23
Cognitive Surplus
From Clay Shirky. In the digital era, people now have the
ability to contribute meaningfully to projects, products and
marketing. This means we operate a Cognitive Surplus of
ideas, influence and innovation that can be harnessed by
Social Businesses that harness Partnership with customers.
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youth marketing mobile culture since 2001
flickr: Andrew Stawarz
24
25. #24
Content
The physical and logical element of a product, company message
and brand. Without Context, Content has no meaning. In the Age of
Discovery, where meaning is created by customers, Content such as
design, advertising and product features is less important than the
ability of this Content to help the customer tell their own story.
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youth marketing mobile culture since 2001
25
26. #25
Context
Youth don’t buy stuff, they buy
what stuff does for them. The
“what stuff does for them” is
Context - the social benefit of a
Social Tool (the product, its story
and usage behaviors). Value is a
function of the Social Currency a
Social Tool creates. In the Age of
Differentiation, Creative Agencies
created Context (the Big Idea). In
the Age of Discovery, the key
storytellers in the mobileYouth
Economy are the Change Agents.
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youth marketing mobile culture since 2001
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26
27. #26
Contextual Deficit
In the mobileYouth Economy, Context is in short
supply. We have an excess of Content and a
reliance on the Big Idea to fashion the Content
into meaning but little meaningful Context. Social
Businesses that allow customers to tell their own
story with the product aim to rebalance the
Deficit and create a Contextual Surplus.
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youth marketing mobile culture since 2001
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27
28. #27
Co-Option
When youth take ownership of the product and
brand’s narrative. In emerging markets we see
Co-Option in the way Disruptive Divas adopt
Social Tools like the Blackberry (their dad’s
phone) and turn it into a symbol of Arrival.
Other examples include Cashless Innovators
rediscovering Refurbished Tech (e.g. fixie bikes,
analogue cameras etc)
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youth marketing mobile culture since 2001
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28
29. #28
Creative Agencies
Traditionally the font of Big Ideas.
Being geared towards the Age of
Differentiation, Creative Agencies
struggle with the Age of Discovery.
Typically, they are hobbled by
Cultural Pushback. Many agencies
employ “social” tactics but remain
attached to the Loudspeaker
mindset, driving clients to waste
money on campaigns that win the
agency awards as opposed to the
client customers.
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29
30. #29
CRM
A strategic tool favored by Anti-Social Business to
interact with customers. CRM seeks to isolate
customer relationships on a One-to-One model of
interaction where what youth really want is the Many-
to-Many connections afforded by Social Business.
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31. flickr: beretclaire
#30
Cultural Hacking
Young people finding solutions to
real life problems by using
products and technology (Social
Tools) in a different way. Also
known as Positive Deviance.
Cultural Hacking drives Bottom-
Up innovation, providing proven
and tested product development
in the real world.
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31
32. THE MOBILEYOUTH 2013 REPORT
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youth marketing mobile culture since 2001
33. THE MOBILEYOUTH 2013 REPORT
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mobileYouth:
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MOBILEYOUTH
youth marketing mobile culture since 2001
34. THE MOBILEYOUTH 2013 REPORT
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MOBILEYOUTH
youth marketing mobile culture since 2001