Subcat Marketing

With the economy affecting  households of every income bracket, the topic of money is definitely on the minds of moms and dads across the country. Whether it’s dealing with a layoff or cutting family expenses, at some point, parents will need to explain to their kids about the changes occurring around them.

Child development experts agree that being honest about money woes—without telling kids more than they need to know—will help foster a healthy home.

So how do parents feel about this? A recent study conducted by the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion suggests that parents see this as just more added stress. According to the study:

For nearly six in ten Americans, talking to kids about money increases family anxiety while 28% say it alleviates it.

The study also found that younger parents (under 45 years old) were more likely  than older parents to be stressed out about talking to their kids about money issues.

For our number-loving friends, here are a couple of tables:

Talking to Children About Money Adds or Reduces Family Stress?

Good Age to Talk to Children About Money?

So what is the opportunity here for youth marketers and educators? Help mom and dad alleviate the stress. Provide age-appropriate tools to help them talk to their kids about money. Games, puzzles and stories that bring financial literacy into the home can go a long way in developing meaningful relationships with parents and your brand.

Here’s something for credit union youth marketing folks (or anyone interested in youth financial literacy):

ABC is airing a special tonight (May 29, 2009, 9p.m. ET) called Un-Broke. The special takes “an unconventional look at the fundamentals of everyday finance with all the facts about credit cards, mortgages, stocks and bonds, investing and 401k’s, in a fresh new format combining information and humor.”

The special features a great lineup of  celebrities, including the Jonas Brothers, Rosario Dawson, Will Smith, Cedric the Entertainer, Seth Green and Samuel L. Jackson, just to name a few. Here’s a clip:

Come on … the Jonas Brothers talking about money? Is there any doubt that interest in personal finance is at an all-time high? This should be exciting news for anyone involved with youth financial literacy. Tune in tonight and let me know what you think.

With the average age of credit union members rising each year, you may find that your marketing efforts are focused on attracting younger members. While there’s no silver bullet for this task, many credit unions find the most success when working with an agency that specializes in youth marketing. Here area few things to consider when selecting a youth marketing partner.

Edgy isn’t always the way to go.
A portfolio full of extreme ads and irreverent spots doesn’t always equal success with today’s youth market. Instead, look for an agency that knows how to make an emotional connection. The goal is to position your credit union as a tool to help young members satisfy their need for personal control, freedom and lifestyle.

Research is king.
Ask a prospective youth marketing agency how they research the youth market. Do they monitor trends on a “as-needed basis” or do they consistently track current studies, reports and surveys daily? Is their insight limited to a couple of Gen Y staffers, or do they use focus group data and industry reports to drive their strategies?

Don’t overlook traditional media.
It’s true that social media is an important part of youth culture, but a balanced approach with multiple channels is required. Many credit unions have been successful using a combination of direct marketing, e-mail, events and social media, so choose an agency that is nimble enough to market online and offline.

Mom and dad matter.
Parents play a crucial role in influencing the banking behavior of their children. Ask a prospective agency if they have a plan for engaging parents. Separate strategies should be developed for Boomer, Gen X and Gen Y parents. Your agency should know how each differs, and how this will shape the marketing message.

Provide education.
Parents are more likely to support brands that provide an educational experience for their children. In addition, credit unions that incorporate education within their marketing efforts stand a better chance of retaining young members over the long-term. Your agency should know how to develop age-appropriate learning strategies and provide relevant educational content.

Youth marketing equals multicultural marketing.
Today’s youth are the most diverse in the history of America. This has a major influence on current youth culture, regardless of geography. Ask a prospective agency how they plan to address multiculturalism within their youth strategy.

Youth marketing doesn’t have to be expensive.
It just has to be smart. Look for an agency that has youth marketing resources in place (i.e. research, content, strategies). An agency with a solid youth marketing infrastructure will help drive down developmental costs.

The Homeland Generation (ages 8 and under) will be teens in five years.
A well-rounded youth  agency will understand multiple generations at once (not just Gen Y). Ask a prospective agency about their insight into Gen X, Gen Y, and the Homeland Generation (aka New Silents), as well as the historical context of each generation. This will help you shape strategy.

Experience counts.
It takes about 10,000 hours to become an expert in anything. Ask a prospective agency about their marketing experience specific to the youth market. Have they worked on a few youth projects, or have they clocked in their 10,000 hours?

Choose a partner who will be ready to hit the ground running on day one. Remember, the youth market represents the future of your credit union.

Download a PDF of this post.

Subcat is honored with two best-in-show nominations for the 2009 MAC Conference.

Each year, the Marketing Association of Credit Unions (MAC) recognizes excellence in credit union marketing. This year, the association recognized four Subcat clients: Pacific Service Credit Union, Valley First Credit Union, Los Angeles Police Credit Union and Texas Trust Credit Union. The agency also received a rare two nominations for Best-in-Show.

The first nomination is for our work with Pacific Service Credit Union’s young adult campaign, “Money for Life.” The direct mail campaign utilized targeted quarterly mailings designed around typical Gen Y life events. Download case study (PDF).

Our second nomination is for Valley First Credit Union’s “Adventure Savers” kids club. This was a comprehensive youth program complete with an interactive website, characters, games, education and fun for credit union kids. Download case study (PDF).

Awards will be announced May 28, 2009.  For more information on MAC, visit their website at www.macnetwork.org.

In part one I reviewed current research indicating that teens and young adults are pretty much ignoring Twitter. It’s pretty surprising stuff, especially in light of Twitter’s meteoric rise and social media credentials. But if the analytics and research aren’t deterring you from using Twitter to reach the youth market, well … good for you. I like your moxy. Let’s figure out how to do this together.

Now I’m not saying it’s impossible to use Twitter to reach youth, but just know that it’s going to be an uphill climb.

How difficult?

Think about this: Larry King, Barbara Walters and Oprah are now on Twitter. Not exactly youth culture icons. This makes things a bit more challenging. Nevertheless, here are three ways you can use Twitter to pump up your youth marketing efforts:

Number one: Give stuff away
Nothing drives the youth market to action quite like free stuff. The challenge is how to fill in the time between your contests and giveaways. This depends on your reasons for using Twitter, which should be defined within your social media strategy plan.

If you’re using Twitter as a way to educate, you can tweet helpful tips for a few days and then ask a question based on one of your tweets. For example, your tweet might look like this:

For a $25 gift card, what does the term APR stand for? Enter to win at [tinyURL here].

If you’re using Twitter to promote a product, giving away free samples through tweets may help create a buzz. Here’s an example:

First 10 followers to respond wins a free case of PowerDrink. Enter to win at [tinyURL here].

Giving away free stuff seems to be the strategy of choice for youth-focused radio stations trying to build a  Twitter presence. One example is KROQ in Southern California. They offer concert ticket giveaways, as well as up-to-the-minute news on local concerts. It’s everything a teen music fan needs.

On the musician side, Trent Reznor (AKA Nine Inch Nails) mixes tour information and “life sharing” with giveaways such as backstage passes and free music. Here’s an actual example of a Trent Reznor tweet announcing a giveaway:

Click on the link and it takes you to this landing page which carries the NIN brand.

Notice that not only can you enter the contest, but you can also download free music samples. The only requirement? You have to provide an email address. I think this part is crucial because it helps the band nurture a relationship outside of the confines of Twitter. The band can now use email to deliver marketing messages if they desire.

Now back to Twitter, you’ll see the next tweet closing the contest.

And finally, the winners are announced:

Notice the time stamps on the tweets. The entire process happened within 12 minutes.

Number two: Start a conversation with mom and dad
Since the average age of Twitter skews older, marketers stand a better chance of talking to parents. Bypass the youth market altogether and focus on moms and dads. This is great news for brands that rely on co-marketing. For our credit union friends, yes, I’m talking about you.

I am a firm believer that marketing a financial relationship to youth must have a parental component involved. Simply ask anyone under 25 why they opened an account with a particular bank or credit union, and 8 out of 10 times you’ll hear something like: “my mom (or dad) opened it for me.”

Start tweeting with mom and dad in mind. Develop a Twitter strategy that speaks to their needs, which is simply to secure their child’s financial future. Be a friend, a partner and an invaluable resource for raising money-smart kids. Share links to articles about parents and money. Help them save for college. Be available to answer their questions. Talk about your community efforts to raise financial literacy. Let them know you care. Be sincere.

Here are two sample tweets from Sarah Newton, who helps parents build relationships with their teen children. Both provide links to informative articles for parents:

These tweets do a great job of helping Sarah establish trust between her and her followers.

Number three: Become a better youth marketer with Twitter.
Although I’m a bit critical of the many ways brands are currently using Twitter, I’m not a Twitter hater. Quite the contrary. Twitter has become an important tool in my youth marketing arsenal. So it’s with the utmost respect for Twitter that I recommend the following:

Don’t use Twitter to speak to the youth market.
Use Twitter to LEARN about the youth market.

If you take the time and energy to learn how to use Twitter as a research and inspiration tool, I promise you will become a better youth marketer. Be a part of the conversation that is happening right now about youth research, case studies, best practices and other valuable tidbits.

The best way to get started is simply to begin following people who are involved in the youth market. To give you a little push in the right direction, here are five of my favorite Twitter users who help me tap into the youth market on a daily basis:

carol_phillips
YPulse
teenscene
sarahnewton
KidScreen

Check out their tweets and see who they’re following,  and so and so on. And of course, you can follow me for my perspective on current youth marketing issues.

Another way to get started is by using a Twitter directory such as wefollow. Search any topic and you’ll find hundreds (or even thousands) of Twitter users with similar interests. Read their profiles and begin following the ones that interest you. One more tip: for a well-rounded look at the youth market, follow people outside your primary industry, as well as from within.

Now it’s your turn
The beauty about Twitter is that it is still be explored. It’s a quickly evolving medium and in all honesty, us marketers are still trying to figure it out. So in the spirit of cooperation that is Twitter, I turn it over to you. What do you think? How can marketers use Twitter as a youth marketing tool? And feel free to use more than 140 characters.

Part 1 of 2

There’s no denying the popularity of Twitter. In just three short years, the micro-blogging service has infiltrated popular media with rock stars, athletes and even politicians tweeting. And as with any new technology, the youth market is at the vanguard of this cool and new communications tool, right?

Um, well, no. Much to the surprise of many trend watchers, Twitter has yet to catch on with teens and young adults under 25—the traditional early adopters of new media.

According to a recent survey conducted by a team from the Walter E. Griscti chapter of the Public Relations Student Society of America at the University of South Florida, Twitter isn’t popular with young people. The group surveyed 250 Florida college students, asking about their Twitter awareness and online habits. Here’s what they found:

• 99 percent use social networking sites
• 15 percent have an account with Twitter
• 34 percent have never even heard of Twitter
• 58 percent of the students who have Twitter accounts never use it or rarely log-on

In addition, recent figures from comScore show that although Twitter traffic has exploded over the past year, as of February 2009, only 10.6 percent of Twitter users in the U.S. were between 18 and 24 years old.

A Nielsen NetView report (also for February 2009) found that Twitter users, ages 2 – 17, only comprised 3.6 percent of the site’s audience. In contrast, users ages 35 – 49 comprised 41.7 percent.

[And on a very informal level, anytime we ask teens about Twitter, most don’t even know what we’re talking about.]

What’s going on here?
One theory is that we are seeing a shift in the early adopter demographic. Societrends’ Nick Barron recently addressed the issue in an insightful post on his blog. He said:

“We’re seeing the destruction of the early adopter demographic, or at least the shifting of it from a group defined by age to a group defined by education and professional status.”

You can read his entire post here.

Is it game over for Twitter and Teens?
It may still not be too late for young consumers to embrace Twitter, but I do think it has one foot in the MySpace uncool graveyard.  There are three main reasons why I believe Twitter will have a tough time cracking the youth market:

1. Teens can already micro-blog using Facebook, Bebo or MySpace. And unlike Plurk which is making a serious run for the youth market, Twitter doesn’t offer anything new, or add to the experience. And most importantly, they are already connected with their friends on other sites.
2. Twitter has already been claimed by adults, specifically, us business-folk.  Remember the old youth marketing adage: If grandma is using it, forget it. This happened to MySpace, and Facebook is now showing signs of “graying.”
3. Many companies that are on Twitter to engage the youth market find themselves being followed overwhelmingly by industry insiders. I haven’t seen any formal studies on this subject, but my sense is that for every one young consumer following a particular brand, there are something like 15 marketers, CEOs, trend watchers and other curious by-standers also following.  For the young consumer engaging a brand through Twitter and being able to see these followers, this may look more like a marketing experiment rather than an authentic experience.

Yes, I believe the cards are stacked against Twitter and the youth market, but there’s still a glimmer of hope. Curious? Well, that’s part two.

For those of you who missed High School Musical’s Zac Efron’s debut on grown up TV, here’s a clip from his SNL gig. Great to see that he doesn’t take his role as king of tween media too seriously.

What’s the cool new device for kids and teens? Move over Nintendo. Step aside RAZR. The Apple iPhone and iPod Touch are taking the youth handheld market by storm.

According to “Taking Stock with Teens,” a new study by Piper Jaffray, Apple’s making great strides in capturing the teen market with the iPhone.  Piper Jaffray found that eight percent of teens use an iPhone, with 16% of teens planning on buying one within the next six months.

Another recent study conducted by Nickelodeon revealed that nearly all parents (90%) believe that the Apple devices are appropriate for use by children under 18. The iPod Touch in particular is becoming very popular with younger kids. Most younger users inherit a hand-me-down iPod Touch from an older sibling or parent when they upgrade to the iPhone.

When I read this statistic, I immediately thought of my two-year old daughter, Sofia. She LOVES my iPod Touch. What’s not to love? It’s loaded with her favorite shows: Dora, Wonder Pets and Yo Gabba Gabba. When she gets in the car she immediately requests her favorite songs: “Happy Birthday” by the Ting Tings, and “Again and Again” by The Bird and the Bee. While we’re at home sitting on the couch, she asks to see pictures of herself on my Facebook page.

She will definitely inherit the iPod Touch once I buy my iPhone in the next few months. While I never thought I would say that, I know I’m not alone. The iPhone and iPod Touch are so popular with parents and kids, that a new website, iPhoneAndKids.com, provides parents with “tips and application reviews for iKids.”

For many parents, the iPod Touch is a cost-effective replacement for the many devices in the typical kiddy e-toy arsenal.  An interesting article on iPhoneAndKids.com, “5 Concerns About Buying iPod Touch for Children,” does a great job addressing this:

” … for us [parents], it replaced many of the educational electronic VTech and LeapFrog toys we got for spelling, colors, animal sounds, etc. We also have many story book apps on it. It also replaced my son’s DVD player, which we use mostly when we are traveling. When we add the cost of those all up, from the price point, iPod Touch was worth it’s value.”

Marketing and Education Opportunities

So what does this mean for companies serious about reaching a younger audience through new media? Whether you’re looking to create brand awareness or provide education—take a close look at the iPhone/iPod Touch platform.

For example, Nickelodeon recently released new applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The applications are games based on the hit TV shows SpongeBob SquarePants, Dora the Explorer and iCarly. PBS Kids Sprout is introducing two free iPhone applications that lets users stream three to four minute podcasts of Sprout content and promotional clips.

For credit unions looking to deliver financial education or create games for younger members, developing your website and activities with the iPhone platform in mind is a smart strategy. Here are a few things to consider:

1. Connection speeds. Not everyone is on broadband. Mobile connection rates demand a fast website.
2. Screen resolution. The iPhone has a wide screen resolution of 320 by 480 pixels. Users can zoom out to see the entire page, or zoom in for finer text. The touch-screen enables scrolling from left to right. When designing for very young kids, keep scrolling to a minimum—the fine motor skills needed may be a bit too much.
3. Flash not supported. If your site is built in Flash, or you’re using Flash games or video on your site, they will be inaccessible on an iPhone. Provide options for users, such as HTML sites or Quicktime movies. You can also host video on YouTube, as the iPhone supports YouTube video.
4. Navigation. Consider the age of your users. Just because a child is comfortable using technology and can physically navigate the device doesn’t necessarily mean they understand the cause and effect of all the available functions. The limited screen size makes simple and logical navigation a must.

With the iPhone and iPod Touch becoming the “go-to” device for kids and teens (and parents), it’s not enough to simply develop websites for Internet Explorer and Firefox anymore. Make mobile devices a part of your online strategy and your younger visitors will appreciate it.

I recently sat down (actually exchanged email) with Jeffrey Pilcher of The Financial Brand, an online publication focusing on issues and advice that affect bank and credit union brands. Our virtual discussion focused on youth marketing related to financial services. I always enjoy this type of conversation because it makes me pause and really think about what we’re doing and why we’re doing it. One question he asked that I really liked was: “How does the current economic crisis affect youth programs?” Here’s my response:

As most marketing professionals know, marketing budgets are typically the first to get cut. Programs that don’t immediately contribute to the bottom line are even closer to the axe.

Financial institutions must recognize that this economic crisis has brought the topic of money front and center. Whether kids are hearing stories at school about a friend’s father who lost his job or teens are watching news reporters predict total economic collapse, exposure to the world of finance and the economy among youth is at an all time high. The current situation creates what some may call a “teachable moment.”

You can read the complete interview here.

There’s been a lot of buzz over the past month with Nickelodeon’s announcement they were introducing a tween version of Dora the Explorer. Most of it centered around the concern that squeeky-clean Dora, who is a role model to five-year old girls around the world, was going to get a Barbie makeover. There was even a greater fear that she would run in the same social circles as the Bratz characters.

Nickelodeon didn’t help matters when they issued a press release last month explaining the move.

“As tweenage Dora, our heroine has moved to the big city, attends middle school and has a whole new fashionable look. What’s more, she now has a rich online world in which girls can explore, play games, customize, and most importantly solve mysteries with Dora and her new friends.”

They released a teaser silhouette (see above), that seemed to suggest Dora would be trading in her signature walking shorts and t-shirt for a revealing mini-skirt. Obviously this had the Internet ablaze with accusations of selling out our kids and encouraging little girls to grow up too fast.

Potential PR problem for Nickelodeon? Hardly. They quickly released an actual rendering of the new tween Dora. Turns out that suggested mini-skirt was a tunic over leggings. All is well in Dora land once again.

I didn’t think for a second that Nickelodeon would do anything outrageous to their hallmark character. They’re too smart to jump aboard any bandwagon. And with literally hundreds of millions of dollars at stake, you can be sure they tested this concept thoroughly. They are simply following the first rule of youth marketing: stay relevant!

It’s common knowledge that kids typically outgrow their favorite characters. (On a side note: I thought this theme was addressed beautifully in the Toy Story movies by Pixar). Even the most popular youth franchises watch their audience walk away once they reach a certain age. Nickelodeon has addressed this by opening a door for Dora that not only extends play that is age appropriate, but also gives her character a more contemporary look.

The official roll out of the new Dora will be in September, and will be driven by a Dora Links fashion doll. According to Nickelodeon:

“By plugging the doll into the computer, girls can access an interactive online world. Girls will be able to explore Dora’s world, talk to the characters, earn currency, and help Dora solve mysteries which will be uploaded on a regular basis. The stories will have pro-social themes like volunteerism, water conservation, or planting trees to help the environment.”

Basically, Nickelodeon has designed Dora to grow up with her fans, without losing her core values. Brilliant!

Now, let’s just hope that Nickelodeon doesn’t get any bright ideas about a Hip Hop teen Diego (bling accessories sold separately).