5 Strategies Winning Brands Can Use To Engage The Youth
In Trends
With the much anticipated Y!CON 2016 conference coming up in just over a month, brands are hungry as heck to understand what drives the youth at a deeper level. Because pitching up is not enough, we identify 5 crucial strategies that play a role in young consumers’ decision making behaviour, useful to brands that want to sway student spending power in their favour.
- 1. The Only Constant Is Change
In their ability to change rapidly with trends and developments, young consumers are naturally the trend setters and change agents. Brands need to adopt an Afrillennial™ mindset, have authentic engagements and closer encounters in order to connect with the youth and their influence on other consumers. Brands simply cannot have a handle on where the Afrillennial™ market is heading. What they should consider however, is how they will grow with students and enable their aspirations, in order to affect continued adoption with their counterparts.
- 2. Pitching Up Is Not Enough
Doing an activation on campus with a grand stand and promoters as a once off is not going to assist your brand in creating a longstanding connection with the youth. Brands that get youth interaction wrong at the first impression risk taking years to recover. Retailers that were relevant in Student Spend Research five years ago might no longer feature because they failed to capture the youth’s attention and did not adapt to their changing environment. Getting them engaged and returning requires continued relationship building, genuine interest and dedication and will bring high reward.
- 3. They Have An Acquired Taste
Students can tell when brands aren’t constantly tweaking and calibrating what is being offered. They don’t only judge the product set on offer. The market has more options and this means that the market place is much more competitive than it used to be. Brands that are popular remain popular however see a decline in market share due to so many other players in their field.
One such brand to highlight included Coca Cola which remains the favourite but with a much lower percentage now that other brands are gaining the youth’s attention. Oros is one example that was found to be students’ second most purchased drink in the recent Res Room Study. Other popular brands like Edcon and Absa have been holding onto a legacy market share that is now slipping due to credit tightening and new players in their marketplace that appeal to the youth’s acquired taste.
- 4. Their Image Comes First
Students are mainly concerned with their image and how brands contribute or affect them in this respect, from the stores they shop for groceries at, to the brands of premium clothing they buy to wear on campus. By using intriguing imagery in customization of products tailored to the youth market, brands are striking the critical tone of relevance with students. When brands elevate Afrillennials™’ social status by having them seem as though they’ve arrived, they become Velcro to students and captivate the market.
Students don’t only buy into affordable and value based products but see how they can stretch their budgets whilst feeding their image. From shopping in the right places to going home with the right shopping bag, the Res Room Study found retail brands to be of higher regard to students than the brands they buy.
- 5. They Are Benefit Driven
Taking a look into student wallets, the study found a vastly improved relationship with credit and loyalty card providers. Loyalty cards which did not feature in previous studies due to a lack of instant gratification have come into the limelight with students all having more than one credit card and using various loyalty cards with Pick n Pay’s smart shopper card and Clicks’ loyalty card top of the list. Capitec has become a favourite for its service and reduced costs amongst the youth as well and featured most in student pockets.
These findings were derived from the most recent research piece on Brands In Student Res Rooms, brought to you by Student Village and you can find out more by registering and attending the annual Y!CON 2016 conference.
The Annual Y!CON 2016 Conference
Student Village is offering a unique marketing insight into SA’s youth market, taking brands into the world of the Afrillennial™ (African Millennial) like never before, at Y!CON 2016. As South Africa’s youth market specialists and in partnership with Bizcommunity as its online partner, the brand will be plugging into the minds of the coolest and most influential marketing gurus and students to help brands uncover Afrillennial™ mindsets.
Y!CON 2016 is targeted at Public Relations Managers; Communication Managers; Charities and CSI; Brand Managers; Media Planners; Researchers; Marketing Managers; Digital Marketers; Graduate Recruiters; Account Managers; The Public Sector; Human Resources.
Date: 17 March 2016
Venue: The Venue, 17 High Street, Melrose Arch, Johannesburg
Contact: Samantha Van Zyl
Telephone Number: 0118853918
Email Address: [email protected]
Cost: R3,500 per delegate ex VAT / R2,950 per delegate when booking 5 seats ex VAT
To book your space or to find out more, visit www.studentvillage.co.za/ycon.