Ypulse Sponsored Post: Creating Community Through Advertising
Posted by anastasia on 05-29-2009
Today’s Ypulse Sponsored post is from Kiel Fletcher (pictured below) the events marketing manager at Fuse, anchor sponsor for this year’s Ypulse Youth Marketing Mashup. This post is part of that sponsorship.
To learn more about Fuse Marketing and their unique approach to effectively reaching youth, be sure to catch Fuse founder Bill Carter and his session “Listen to Teens and Stop Wasting 50% of Your Marketing Budget” at the Mashup next week!
Creating Community Through Advertising
It is safe to say that between our mobile phones, television, online media, billboards, and every other medium, we are constantly bombarded with messaging all day long. For advertisers, this creates a huge challenge to make sure the message is not lost amongst all other competing and non-competing content.
With so much messaging, some traditional ways of reaching the youth audience through television, print and even some online advertising is becoming a thing of the past. If you think of the old adage, “Time is Money,” it is overwhelming in relation to a single person’s daily schedule, which is spent receiving messages from advertisements – whether they are receptive to the message or not. So how does a company get over such hurdles and get your message across? By simply adding value to the community you are trying to reach, and make them want to seek you out.
In March of 2008, Wired Magazine featured an article by Chris Anderson entitled “Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business.” The article gives great insights on how the idea of free, as an economy, is driven by the technologies that fuel the web and how everything that touches the internet is affected in return. So, not only should you have to give back to those same folks you are trying to connect with, but you are supposed to do it for free? Sounds crazy right?
Well not entirely. Two incredibly successful websites dedicated to giving their community an alternative outlet for information, and providing them a haven for videos, gear and entertainment, are TheBerrics.com and Newschoolers.com. The Berrics is the private skatepark owned by skateboard legends Steve Berra and Eric Koston. The website documents the life of these legends through a series of weekly weblogs and features that revolve around the day to day happenings at the park. Newschoolers.com has proved its staying power year after year as a source of information for the freeskiing community, as well as an online interactive network for freeskiers of all ability levels to connect and communicate.
These two free sites, though executed in much different formats, have the same ethical principal to give back to the community of skaters and skiers they love. One of the major keys to their success is that they are not only fans, but they are credible participants who constantly add new content. Though the sole reason for these sites’ existence is to create an online hub for athletes, a very similar model has been created with great success by a number of other brands as well.
Brands in the footwear industry, using Nike, Gravis and Adidas as examples, all execute this idea extremely well throughout their multiple lines and many websites. These brands have created online communities through a combination of YouTube channels, viral videos, and their respective websites. The latter of which are a pure source for creative, original content that revolves around advertising shoes and apparel, and is also an extension of other advertising channels.
They have created a huge amount of brand equity by taking candid moments with their athletes, musicians and artists and giving these moments as content back to their established and prospective fan base. In both cases, the hub of information revolves around their focus on the lifestyle of the product rather than the products themselves. Nike executes this idea most successfully through their Nike Soccer (most notably their YouTube channel full of viral videos) and Nike 6.0 websites, while Adidas centers at their “Celebrate Originality” campaign, and Gravis executes it best on their ivtv web channel.
It’s not all web-based however, as brands also use an added element of traditional media to support their online presence. Converse Skateboarding is a great example of this practice, as they recently unveiled Parlour, an original skateboarding zine, with limited print and distributed only to high-level, core retailers.
By creating these outlets and videos, many of which become online viral sensations, brands can lessen the intrusiveness of their advertising and become more of a free service provider than an advertiser. Brand equity is gained with a younger demographic through these advertising channels and can have a huge impact on customer loyalty. If a company’s advertising becomes a form of entertainment, a source of insight or a free commodity – rather than a distracted message – it’s hard not to reach your audience.
For more coverage of youth marketing, go to the Ypulse Youth Marketing Channel sponsored by Youth Marketing Connection.
Categorized under: Youth Marketing
May 30th, 2009 at 7:27 pm
Thank you Kiel.
This was great information and I really appreciate the last part of it. Specifically: “If a company’s advertising becomes a form of entertainment, a source of insight or a free commodity – rather than a distracted message – it’s hard not to reach your audience.” i for one plan to implement it into promoting the Realizing A Vision conferences to high school girls.