Marketers Turn a New Leaf in Strategy

 Marketing to Kids…
Post inspired by Businessweek Online article linked above

“Companies hoping to attract young customers are building whole marketing campaigns around social network sites such as Facebook and MySpace”. --- Businessweek Online

Smart businesses start to join social networks such as Facebook.

The article that journalist, Rachel King, writes is what sparked this little post of mine. It describes how companies are using social networks as a way to reach younger users, below the age of 35, with their products and services.

Big names who have been the leaders in this type of marketing tactic include:

JP Morgan Chase --- Burger King --- Apple --- and Wendy’s (check out their advertisements in the link)

So why are these companies venturing into a different media and “testing the waters”? The reason is this: these companies have realized that if they want to promote to the younger generation or consumers they have to go where these consumers “hang out” and that would be in social networks on the web.

JP Morgan Chase chose to create a marketing program on Facebook, an online community that has millions of STUDENT members. A great call by the company since many of the users on the site have unofficially adopted the name “a Facebook addict” and/or “Facebook stalker”. Chase said they ran the campaign because research “showed young people prefer to interact with brands in familiar surroundings”. So users of Facebook can earn points by joining the Chase subgroup, signing up for and activating a credit card, and reading handy information about credit use. The great part about Facebook is that if kid joins the Chase group a bunch of his or her friends will also be exposed to campaign.

who knew Facebook (above right) and JP Morgan (below left) would ever have someting in common!

What young people want is to experience brands through interaction and not loud and disturbing pop-up banners. This is a great way for users to get exposed to a brand and have fun interacting with its promotions. This is exactly the idea that Burger King has gone with.
                                                                             

Burger King has joined the MySpace community and has giving their spokesperson, The King, is own MySpace page. Once a friend of the King, one can access his page and see free episodes of Fox shows like 24 and American Dad. According to Gillian Smith who is the senior director of media and interactive at Burger King, “Consumers respect us more as a brand if we are giving them something they can use”.

I couldn’t be happier with this new wave of marketing strategies. To think of a world where one can enter the net and not be bombarded with loud blinking pop-ups that stubbornly don’t disappear even when you hit the “close” button three times!

The other great thing about it all is that companies are willing to adapt to the consumer and their needs. Better marketing researching is helping companies understand the young consumers’ mind sets and pet-peeves (i.e. in your face disruptive advertising) and therefore are coming up with marketing solutions where both get something for their time spent together. A trade off of interests, you may say.

Now I must go….I can’t wait to see what fun new adventures await Jack Bauer on "24".

The Ruminator