Youth Marketing - Reaching The Market

Reaching The Market

The youth market is viewed as a difficult group to connect with and sell to, based on the fragmented media landscape and young people's keen ability to identify and reject marketing messages that lack credibility. Nonetheless, many brands market to youth by offering relevant products and services while communicating a brand message in an appropriate voice and tone. Successful brands marketing to youth have a foundation in or association with key interests and drivers among youth: music, sports, fashion, video gaming and technology, among others.

While frowned upon for preteens and younger teens, another common way advertisers target the older youth market is through product placement. Product placement occurs when a brand name product appears in a medium not necessarily related to the product itself. Companies often pay for their products to be placed in a movie or on a television show. This act, while not an overt form of advertising, seeks to target youth in a subtle manner.

Youth marketing strategies commonly include television advertising, magazine advertising and online marketing. Today young people expect to be able to learn about, interact and be entertained with brands or services targeting them online. Other common youth marketing tactics include entertainment marketing, music marketing, sports marketing, event marketing, viral marketing, school and college programs, product sampling and influencer marketing.

Examples of brands embraced by youth and used as examples in marketing cases are: Vans Footwear, it used youth marketing tactics to grow from a niche sneaker brand to a successful international business and Mountain Dew, a well known soft drink brand that expanded market share through youth marketing tactics in the 1990s.