Youth Marketing Resources

Last April, sports fans' attention was focused on over 60 basketball, hockey, 7’s rugby, cross country and swimming teams where thousands of athletes were vying for a national title in the KSSSA (Kenya Secondary Schools Sports Association) National 1st Term Games. Traditionally, national brands dominate sponsorship in the anticipation that the tournament's glow will rub off on their brands. The hope: that millions of fans (courtesy of television and print media) will also notice their brands! Indeed, marketing your brand during the national championships means you’re part of something historic and magical – like when a guy named Biko Adema single-handedly destroyed Maseno in 2005, or when in 2001 a barefoot Alice Timbilil outclassed the cross country field and then a week later repeated the same feat at the senior level...
Story By Ngaruiya Githegi

But sponsoring the National Games, often means dropping a boatload of cash, and that's where most brands give up. They decide not to play. Here's the truth: You don’t have to spend millions to be a part of the action.
By hand-picking the right schools and putting your shillings directly into the school community, your brand can share in the excitement of high school sports and win some fans - while not breaking the bank.
If you’re running a brand on a tight budget and looking to take advantage of the goodwill and high brand engagement that sports marketing delivers, here are the schools I would recommend you look at targeting. These schools attract a combined spectator audience of more than 250,000 (this is far much more than the national championships can deliver). This audience comprises of the school’s student community, the general student community (not from the respective school) that often visits these schools for organized tournaments and the community around the school that often comes to watch the games.

These schools dominate their regions, have enthusiastic fans, and boast interesting centres of activity that allow you to reach students in a new way.
You should also know that due to the free education program, non-educational activities like sports have had to contend with serious budget cuts. Schools are now more accommodating to corporate sponsors who add value to their sports teams. Gone are the days of ‘in kind’ partnerships, when providing the school with a crate of soda was deemed as sponsorship, school administrations are now much wiser and want hard cash to run their sports teams.

My Top 5 Schools For Effective In-School Sports Marketing

1. Laiser Hill Academy – Sitting comfortably in the heart of Kiserian, Laiser Hill is a mixed school with a population of about 700. Currently the National & Rift Valley champions, Laiser Hill has a fanatical following around the area and are the toast of Kajiado District. Laiser Hill’s support also spills over to the Nairobi suburbs of Ongata Rongai and Kiserian.
2. St. Austin’s Academy – Prestigious, up market and synonymous with high school hoops. When you need to align your brand with the A,B market, look no further than this institution. They also host a lot of inter-school activities which target similar upmarket, private institutions, so partnering with this school’s basketball team will give you major inroads into this market.
3. Maseno High School – Nothing says you connect more with Nyanza’s youth than ‘endorsing’ Maseno High as the Provincial Basketball Champions. A simple billboard should do the trick. Remember the ‘President Obama’ endorsement billboards in December last year?
4. Mang’u High School – Probably has one of Kenya’s most influential alumnus associations (which boasts President Kibaki). Align yourself with the success of their basketball and hockey teams, and the influential alma mater factor is never too hard to wiggle in.
5. Mombasa Baptist - This institution’s campus is loaded with centres of activity. The fact that it is mixed and has a large population only adds to its attractiveness.

If you feel that this type of approach will work for you, why not take advantage of the 2nd term games? Remember, the 2nd term games calendar is entirely different from the 1st term, thus you need to engage an entirely different set of schools.

Youth Marketing In A Recession

Both the local and global economy are bad. There’s really no need to reiterate anything on this topic. You get it. Finance Minister Uhuru seems to get it. We all get it. Now that I’ve said it, let’s move on and talk about what that means to people like us - the people in charge of marketing a brand, product, service, gadget, widget…whatever. The individuals tasked with the responsibility that our work is actually doing something – increasing brand recognition, moving product, changing minds. It seems pretty clear that results are more important now than ever.
Written by Ngaruiya Githegi, Managing Director - Teenwise Media Limited

So, what do today’s headlines that include words and phrases like “financial meltdown,” “sharp falls,” “global recession,” “consumer pessimism,” and “credit crunch” mean to marketers really? Well, it means that a huge percentage of all large companies will cut their budgets this year. As it stands, large companies have either cut their budgets or are planning to do so in the very near future. Very few will be increasing marketing budgets in 2009. And it looks like television and radio are getting hit the hardest, which is probably not all that surprising given they get the biggest share of the marketing budget pie.
But what do you do with your newly limited budget? Especially when the sales projections you did last year didn’t anticipate a spiralling economy. Rethink your strategy, of course. And then make sure that every shilling you spend counts.
•    Escalate Consumer Intimacy – You have to get reacquainted with your customer. You need to secure some one-on-one time with them. Where are they studying, chilling and playing? Be there. Make a lasting impression…we don’t know how long we’ll be in a recession.
•    Increase Consumer Happiness – You need to keep your customers happy. You should keep them engaged. Make them remember why they loved you in the first place.
•    Maintain Visibility With Consumer – Please do not go into hiding. Remember that with every competing brand that drops out of sight, your share of voice goes up. A brand could go from small fish/big pond to medium fish, and so on, pretty quickly. It’s just like the old “buy-low/sell-high” mantra. If there’s anytime that small brands play catch up with big ones – it’s during a recession (big brands tend to cut budgets big time, while small brands more-or-less maintain their marketing spend). If your marketing budgets are going under the guillotine, then find other ways of maintaining visibility with your consumer or you could find your brand fighting just to get visibility with the consumer.

Recessive Marketing
A recession is the perfect time to increase your one-to-one consumer engagement. And one of the most effective ways to accomplish this – especially when you’re targeting the youth, is through Youth Media-Specific Marketing and/or Experiential Marketing. Look for media that targets the youth directly – avoid the ubiquitous ‘prime time news’ or ‘drive time’ type of advertising - be more focussed in your ad placement. It’s the easiest, not to mention the most cost-effective, way to create a meaningful interaction with your brand.
Experiential Marketing is equally cost-effective. Find ways to create unique, lasting impressions with your target audience. That could mean anything from increasing your presence on campus via product sampling to leveraging on sports events, or even engaging your brand to an entertainment venue where they will associate your brand with the fun time they have with their friends.
Wouldn’t it be great if all this economic downturn talk went away tomorrow? Well, since that’s unlikely, here’s to more strategic and focussed spending. It’s not only smarter — it’s now a necessity.

My New Year Marketing Resolutions

Youth Marketing presents the biggest marketing paradox (or is it a conundrum?); it is the most challenging demography to understand, and yet it is the biggest and most lucrative. So you have a vast market reservoir that could benefit your brand not only today, but well into the future, but creating effective strategies to tap into this market remains a challenge.
I believe, the key to tapping into this market ultimately lies in the ability to understand this market – consistently (It’s very easy to loose the youth market tomorrow even if you’ve managed to connect with them today). I have therefore decided to come up with10 resolutions to ensure that I’m up to speed (this is a tough call) with this market, throughout the year.
Story by Ngaruiya Githegi, Managing Director - Teenwise Media Limited

My New Year Resolutions
1. I promise to consume the things that youth consume
Reading about Facebook, Twitter, and Bebo or learning about them second-hand is not enough. Experience is the best teacher – I will need to experience all these things personally to understand them.

2. I promise to stop generalizing youth
The youth market is not homogenous, and “students” are not targeting points. A student in Maseno, is different from a student in Machakos. Every school and campus has a different feel, with its own scenes, interests and centres of activity. Drill down and talk to the specific high school or college kid you’re looking for.

3. I promise not to dangle an iPod as a prize
A lot of brands approach the youth as if they were novice Morans stumbling upon a lion: with caution borne of uncertainty and fear. They dangle something they think is tasty (i.e., an iPod), and then scratch their heads when the student runs away. Provide something unique, not something even their auntie owns.

4. I promise not to obsess about back-to-school
Too many brands feel they absolutely have to be there the day classes start. As lucrative as it may be (and believe me, it is!), sometimes it’s better to wait when you won’t be competing as hard for their attention.

5. I promise not to pretend to be someone I’m not
If your brand is making a claim or taking a stance on an issue, it is better to be true to your brand culture. Being “green” or feeding the homeless isn’t just about putting out a press release. It requires a complete shift in your company culture and the way you do business. If your brand isn’t what you say it is, students will know. If you want to make a difference, pick something your people are passionate about, and run with it.

6. I promise to start measuring my brand health with the youth market
High school and college campuses have their own ecosystems, which provide a perfect opportunity to learn about perceptions of your brand. Put some of your budget behind pre-campaign brand-health research before you strategize your next campaign.

7. I promise to get “mobilized”
(Check out the new ‘Mobilyzed page in The Insyder) If you don’t have plans to have a solid mobile presence, you are making a mistake. I don’t need to tell you how important phones are to this market (ban or no ban). If you can’t engage them in school, engage them when they’re not in school. Ask what your brand can do to make their lives easier, and start building it.

8. I promise to experience events that connect with youth
I have learnt that placing banners and giving out samples at events that youth attend doesn’t necessarily lead to brand loyalty. In fact, banners and samples don’t engage the youth. Learn to attend events that youth love and find out exactly what they love about these events. Let your brand make their event experience better.

9. I promise to consume and immerse myself into youth media
Be careful where you place your advertising. Increased competition in content targeting the youth market can make things rather confusing. Watch, listen and read youth-related content like the target market. Ultimately, we are all young at heart and by consuming these mediums ourselves, we can be able to identify those that are working hard to consistently remain relevant with the youth market (note that word ‘consistently’ rears its head again)

10. I promise not to rely entirely on numbers and powerpoint reports
I have to be candid; Youth Marketing is a completely new phenomenon in our marketing world – research into this market is only beginning to find a niche for itself. Learn about your research findings by actually spending more time with this target instead of relying just on numbers and reports.