Kids influencers nooooo, market by themselves!

Kids are no longer influencers, but a market by themselves!

Technology boom and media proliferation, a young new genre of audience has marked its presence in the maturing consumer demography. Yes, we are talking about kids, the new generation brand evangelists. Market estimate reveals kids spend an estimated $4.2 billion annually on their personal purchases. The approximate market size influenced by children is $100 billion causing many millions of purchases among their parents.Interestingly kids have matured from persistent nagging to importance nagging, in what is recognized as ‘pester power’. This appeals to parents’ desire to provide the best for their children. This combined with parental guilt plays the critical role in spending decisions, as time-stressed parents tend to substitute material goods for time spent with their kids. So kids, from just being influencers, have now become ‘active consultants’ and ‘information provider’ to parents on most household purchase decisions. This change can be attributed to the conventional and new-age media consumption habits of kids and their increasing comfort levels with modern technology. Resultant effect: 63% of kids are involved in a spectrum of product categories from clothes to bicycles to computers and cars. Mobile phones get 76% involvement while cars enjoy 43% of kids’ involvement. Parents believe that their children do research and express opinions about product categories.
Since all marketers more or less agree that Kids are an important fragment of their target audience if not their audience in totality, schools provide the most relevant concentration of this audience in an almost perfect synergy of possibilities. It delivers a captive youth audience and implies the endorsement of teachers and the educational system. Marketers and activation agencies have been quick to realize the power of theschool environment for promoting their brand and products. What’s more the school contact program is no longer the novelty it was a decade ago. However there is a downside to having an intelligent and informed audience, the “gatekeepers segment” with parents and teachers which cannot be alienated in the communication process. This has resulted in a clear cut variable in measurability of a program in direct proportion its infotainment quotient. A recently concluded study finds that babies as young as six months of age can form mental images of corporate logos and mascots. Brand loyalties can be established as early as age two, and by the time children head off to school most can recognize hundreds of brand logos. Research also shows that close to 90% of kids within 8-12 years of age prefer to act in a group than on their own. About half of them feel enormous pressure to wear the “right” brands. It’s hardly surprising that a whopping 90% of kids’ brand decisions are heavily influenced by their peers, worldwide. In planning a successful activation for kids, identifying kid’s icons and what interests them becomes imperative. Most of us when planning the activation fail to ensure that it has the answers to a few relevant questions. Is the activation engaging for the kids? Is the gratification going to excite them? Is the communication going to capture gatekeepers’ interests? Is it going to breeze through their lives with little impact or will it capture their interest and tickle their imagination? If the answers to these questions are yes, then we have on our hands a successful activation which can draw long term benefit for the brand.
The ideal mix of all these must haves combined with an in-depth understanding of the target audience psychology, as well as the integration with mass media, can be seen with the activation for a leading 2 wheeler company for its brand of scooterettes, Scooty. The objective was to increase awareness and consideration in a region where the category itself was still growing. The target audience was primarily girls aged between 15-19 years (the end users) and parents who were the purchasers. A dipstick with the TG brought to the forefront a few critical insights.
a.
The product purchase is primarily utility driven – purchased for the teenager when she requires mobility for school, tuitions, etc. and the male members of the family cannot accompany her to such destinations.
b.
The topic of proximity for these young adults as well as all relevant gatekeepers is one of Career. It is the highlight of all relevant conversation and thus a common link.
c.
In emerging India there is a gap in the information flowing to the Kids and the perception of their parents. In context it means that the child is exposed to a lot of “non-traditional” career options like the media industry, or advertising where as the parents still perceive the likes of medicine and engineering to be more or less the only acceptable options. Here in lay the disconnect, as well the opportunity.
The Brand Scooty positions itself as the “medium to freedom” -- the freedom from relying on others, the freedom for “Her” to go to college on her own, to plan more into her education days, to expands her horizons every day. Small freedoms add up to much more -- the freedom to dream outside the confines of traditional choices. This formed the basis to develop the Below the line campaign SCOOTY AAGEY BADHO which was an integration of various mediums as multipliers like Print, Out of Home, Electronic and PR. This was combined with a Cause “Promoting Higher Education for the Girl child” completed the communication content.
The school contact program used the simple medium of an essay in which the kids were to express their choice of career and why they believed the choice befitted them. The activation was supplemented by career booklets which have information on the top 10 career options. The selected entries went through a group discussion followed by a one on one interview with the judges. 32 girls won themselves a scholarship. Mass media was innovatively integrated. Women achievers and celebrities, including IAS Officers, Bollywood actors, mountaineers and politicians, gave their views & vignettes on the importance of education for the girl child in print and electronic media were used. These capsules were branded by Scooty Aagey Badho. As opinion leaders drew attention to the program, there was increased receptiveness from the gatekeepers. 6.5 lac girls were reached out to and 2.5 lac kids participated.
The results of the activation were measured by TNS India where in B category towns the reach in target group (daughters) increased by 833%, and the percentage of people that associated the brand with the communication increased by 950%.What contributed maximum to the success of the activation? Mainly that in its conception it answered the critical questions and in its plan there was an in-depth understanding of the target audience psychographic. It offers the best bet to pull off a market driver integrating the infotainment basics and building a communication strategy around a relevant subject, which ensures that marketing objectives can be well met through such activations.