As much as it is difficult to completely decipher youth psyche, it is nevertheless an important aspect to be analysed if a marketer wants to penetrate this elusive segment. Youth marketing is nothing but a term used to describe marketing efforts targeted towards young people.
What age group does this spectrum cover?
Typically, the youth group consists of the age group from 13-35. This segment can be further broken down based on age into teenagers, college students, and young adults.
Why is marketing to youth so important?
Each of the aforementioned segments has marketers queuing up to woo them with advertisements targeted specifically for them. Pleasing this segment is critical because they are the trendsetters, the early adopters, and influencers. Their opinions tend to have a bearing on the spending pattern of family members. They invariably influence the purchasing decisions of their friends and more often than not, that of the family too. While they are consumers themselves, this segment (especially aged 23 years – 35 years) heavily influences decisions involving family such as purchase of white goods, financial investments, family vacation destinations, choice of car, etc. Whereas when it comes to friends, they are major influencers for clothes, accessories and leisure choices of their friends. If a brand is successful at being popular amongst youngsters, it stands a great chance of being spoken about and being considered a “must-have”.
What does a marketer need to do?
The youth today are being hounded by an ever-increasing assortment of media. Typically youth marketing strategies include online marketing (with heavy inclination towards social media), television advertising and magazine advertising. However one media choice which has not been adequately explored is cinema.
Cinema advertising offers unmatched advantages with respect to youth marketing-
Cinema audience primarily consists of youth.
Cinema advertising targets affluent audiences.
Cinema advertising targets urban and educated audiences, a large percentage of which are youth.
Cinema advertising is immersive and delivers to a captive youth audience who are otherwise caught up with one or the other technology gadget.
Cinema industry is booming and more and more youth are flocking to the cinemas every year.
An effective advertisement in a cinema, which rides on the larger-than-life audio-visual effect that a cinema provides, can have a huge impact on the minds of the youth. This can trigger discussions amongst friends and peers about the advertised brand, notching up the curiosity factor. Youth generally doesn’t shy away from trial and if the brand can complement the cinema advertisement with an opportunity to actually try the brand, then rest assured, the brand stands a chance of winning a very valuable segment of the market – the youth.
