Pacific Conferences Addresses How Empowering Youths Can Help to Empower Brands

May 15, 2012 - PRLog -- Brands need to first listen & understand youths before asking to be understood

SINGAPORE, [May 15, 2012] – The onslaught of social media, coupled with mobile platforms, has given youths greater power to choose, compare and criticise brands and other issues alike. Today’s youths are exacting and control a large part of marketing spend – adding a ‘z’ to your tagline or ending your sales pitch with ‘kthnxbai’ is no longer relevant to youths. In perspective, brands cannot only “speak” in the terms of youth – organisations must now learn to listen to youths.

Gaining the attention of hyper-connected digital natives is a daunting task in this cluttered and competitive environment. Instead of resisting the shift and integration of digital to traditional marketing methods, brands should engage youths as partners in the co-creation process in order to incorporate the best of both brands’ and youths’ perspectives. As Chris Chong, Co-Founder of Groupon shares, “Tapping into the collective experiences, skills and ingenuity of youth is a complete departure from the inward looking model and allows you to reward customers by involving them in the production process.” Nonetheless, crowdsourcing comes with its risks. Prashant Agarwal, Regional Marketing Director – Consumer & Mobility (APAC & Japan) of Dell advises caution, “User generated content is critical but also risky. Any time you lend out your brand’s equity to someone who is not a custodian of the brand you risk your reputation. The youth are also non conformists and know their own mind, so companies have to earn their trust.” Brands are henceforth presented with a very thin line to tread between co-creation or co-destruction.

Youth-marketing presents challenges on various fronts, of which mobile-marketing has taken a front-seat as  a crucial communication platform to the youth audience. Brands msut consider the provision of social, connectivity and information relevancy to youths, in order to earning the ‘invitation to be a part of their lives’. Prashant notes, “Today’s youth are very discerning and are not easy to influence”. In similar light, Chris states that youths cannot be locked into a particular platform or even place. Mobile-marketing has carved for itself a position of importance in companies’ marketing strategies. It is imperative that brands react quickly to the sweeping digital developments that rings well with youths and leverage on the redefined marketing paradigm before they are struck off the consideration list.

To address these issues and more, a 2-day conference on “Marketing with Youths” will be held on 23 – 24 July in Singapore and 26 – 27 July in Hong Kong. Key conference highlights include youth branding through influencers, securing a youth investment in your brand via a co-creation process, as well as cutting edge in-game mobile marketing, augmented reality and mobile social marketing techniques.

In its 8th year running, this conference will take insights from Scoot, SingTel, Groupon, Universal Music Group, Air France KLM, The Straits Times, Frenzoo and more. Experts sharing include Scott Silverman, Regional Director APAC at Godfrey Q & Partners, Rohit Dadwal, Managing Director of the Mobile Marketing Association Asia Pacific Ltd, Miguel Bernas, Director of Digital Marketing at SingTel, Colin Miles, Executive Vice President at InternetQ Asia, and many others.  

Conference Details:

Title: Marketing with Youth
Date & Venue:
23 – 24 July 2012, Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel, Singapore
26 – 27 July 2012, Regal Hongkong Hotel, Hong Kong
Organiser : Pacific Conferences
Contact Person : Ms Leah Katigbak
Tel : (65) 6592 7353
Email: leah@conferences.com.sg

Full programme can also be found at: http://conferences.com.sg/s1401-my8-02c-P.pdf

About Pacific Conferences

Pacific Conferences (www.conferences.com.sg) specialises in organising business conferences aimed at providing interactive, insightful information and analysis about issues facing businesses in Asia-Pacific. Catered to middle and upper level executives, its events are usually case studies driven with emphasis on providing in-depth and unbiased practical knowledge.