They don't need no persuasion: Published articles/agencyfaqs 1

Article in agencyfaqs, July4, 06


THEY DON’T NEED NO PER-SU-ASION
Communicating to the Amity generation


The generation that truly believes it can paint the sky red is also the most marketing savvy generation ever… does any one really have a clue how to talk to them?
While we may be making them smile with a How Many You Have and a Dimag ki batti jala de, are we really inspiring, capturing their imagination and laying the foundation for future dialogues?

This is the generation that grew up on a diet of not just Pepsi and pizza, but Kaun Banega Crorepati and match fixing. They saw and heard themselves being discussed on national news, read front-page news items of their fellow students’ cell phone scandals, not to mention suicides. They saw their parents working hard, and pushing them harder. They wrote as many exams as they saw movies. They found their parents buying them what they asked for and they found themselves asking for more. They met Colin Powell and Tony Blair and fired questions at them. They supervised the death of grammar with icons, sms and chat.
They are advertising and media junkies but they haven't rejected marketing techniques – just seen through them! They grew up singing jingles with nursery rhymes. Fortunately for us they are far from shunning advertising per se. In fact, they have a very active, interdependent relationship with advertising. Ad slogans are part of their lingo and their lingo finds its way into ad slogans. They are keen ad watchers, and aspiring creators, already testing their skills and imagination in ad contests in their college culturals.
Hard to impress and harder to fool, this is the generation that will be quick to try brands and quicker to leave them.

Calculative, opinionated, in a hurry, matter of fact, restless and hardened negotiators – to them, happiness and prosperity and brands are closely linked. But beneath the “I am – I want- I will -that’s how I am - so what”, surely, there is confusion and vulnerability and a search for signposts.

What does the future look like?
In communications with this generation across the world, advertisers are acknowledging that entertainment is a pre-requisite for success; but pure entertainment to “passive” receivers will soon be passé, if it isn’t already. Brands need to work towards interactive relationships that CHALLENGE their intelligence and their imagination. Even energy, adventure and irreverence will get boring if it doesn’t INTRIGUE, INVITE COMPLICITY AND PARTICIPATION.
As they grow, there will be dislike of advertising that’s unrealistic and over claiming. Stereotypes, false sentimentality, and brands that try hard to be hip – frivolous youthfulness, will be seen as insulting their intelligence.
They will know lazy advertising when they see it, and will snort it away. Advertising which simply copies other, more original approaches will irritate. We’ll have to be first to be respected. And that means not just advertising, but products and propositions. The pressure to create unusual experiential concepts and new media spaces is going to be killing.
Overall, many studies in many markets have shown that this generation is looking for brands to engage in an HONEST dialogue with them, displaying respect and integrity.
Brands will have to get REALLY REAL, giving them permission to be imperfect. Irony, unvarnished truth, and straight, adult talk will be appreciated.
Or, brands will have to really PUSH THE INSPIRATION QUOTIENT. Acknowledge fundamental truths from their perspective; symbols and stories of self made success, hope, hunger to make it big, determination and persistence, reinvention after failure, mettle and values beyond just appearance, challenging norms and experimentation.


Two other factors will drive communication



First, developments in the current kids and youth markets show a complete blurring of age groups. As today’s kids become youth and youth become acquisitive adults, “who behaves how and buys what” will send age segmentation into a spin.

Second, the gender face off.
As girls get more confident, aggressive and inspired, brands will have to cheer them along and reward their journey. Will men partner them with admiration or will there be a return of beastliness is the question sociologists are asking. The jury is still out on that one. In fact, what marketers will face with tomorrow’s consumers is quite rightly being compared to what men will face with women. In both cases, the center of gravity has shifted.
But beyond what kind of COMMUNICATION the most marketing savvy generation will need, what will be really worth watching is WHAT KIND OF MARKETERS WILL THEY TURN OUT TO BE?