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What's HOT and what's NOT - SA Youth
- 1. Proudly brought to you by: What’s hot and what’s not
- 4. 2nd - 4th year students
- 5. Mixed race and sex focus groupsThe research
- 6. What’s on students’ minds? Campus events Media Consumption habits Categories covered
- 8. Peer advice
- 10. Reality tv
- 11. music
- 13. Prizes
- 14. Hot celebs
- 15. “Remember I am on the go most of the time, you have a few seconds to get to me” media
- 16. WORD OF mouth Facebook Sms Posters Flyers
- 17. guidelines Less is more Design matters Quality KISS
- 18. consumerism
- 19. Brand switching
- 20. Key learnings
- 21. For more insights log onto www.studentmarketing.co.za Thank you!
Editor's Notes
- Good Morning everyone.I hope that you are all well, and that the breakfast was spectacular. If it wasn’t to your liking, there is a MacDonalds not far from here to grab a snack on your way to your next meeting or office. The topic for todays Breakfast as you all know is What’s hot and What’s not with the youth. We are really excited about this topic, as it gave the students that we engage with on a daily basis on campus and off campus an opportunity to tell us what the truth. Some of it was pretty, some of it was quite ugly, and some of it was just pure hilarious. However what we will be presenting to you today, is the core of what’s hot and what makes it hot as well as the converse side of what’s not hot, and guidelines to ensure you are not in this unfortunate bundle. So lets begin with some of our more bewildering and hilarious discussions with students.
- In order to properly engage students we focused our research along the following lines: 1. we selected the 6 most active campuses in terms of brand activity. These campuses conduct brand promotions on a weekly basis done by various brands and brand agencies. 2. Focus groups were our chosen method of research as with a topic and diverse and open as this, speaking directly to influential students was a more accurate way of capturing their opinions.3. We needed to ensure we are speaking to experienced students. Those that have live the perils of being a student.4. We needed to speak to as many diverse voices as possible. This research process ended up in a great non stop party with students, filled with pizza, lengthy discussions and video recordings.
- Now because there are so many topics that can be explored under our theme, to ensure that research is relevant we focused on 4 key topics that concern the youth and brand engagement. They are:What’s on students minds? what pop culture trends are hot in the market and why are they hotCampus Events we look at brands that have made an impression in the market then we look at the lessons from those brandsMedia what media is the ideal channel to reach students what rules govern media engagement with studentsAnd then finally Consumption what’s the hot brand at the moment and what you need to get students to switchSo get your pens and pads, your Tablets out or your, tape recorders, and mini laptops….this is going to be an interesting ride.
- The first topic we explore is What’s On Students Minds?After probing our focus group students on the many topics that students discuss on a daily basis, we discovered that all the discussions revolved around 3 central themesThe first one is experience.Experience refers to discussions about what they have encountered and learned through from their life experiences. This theme could cover, sex, relationships, opinions about products they have used, even courses they have attending. The second them is around Peer Advice. This theme is closely tied to that of experience, as they share stories about what to do in situations. The final theme is based on Aspirations. These are general discussion about the future. Why is this important to note: well this is where your brand is discussed. The value proposition of your brand, the product and brand experience, and heck is the product any good at what it should do.So paying attention to the conversations will yield great insight for your brand. These conversations however, are very much influenced by the 3 themes we just spoke about. So without further adeu, let’s check out what’s hot on students lips at the moment.
- Twitter is hot.To be honest this baffled us initially, as our mobile research from earlier this year indicated that Twitter was not hot yet. In the Social networks, Twitter ranked 4th.It was when we started digging deeper that we realized the truth value of twitter’s current hotness. Students are instant gratification junkies, who want to be top of the information chain. And Twitter helps them do this. The fact that you are getting minute by minute information makes you the cool guy on campus, cause you are in the know on what’s trending or hot that hour, day, heck even minute. The hot channels to follow: news channels – @News24, @Cosmo Magazine, Celebrities and Comedians – because they are interested in what’s going on in their lives.
- Reality TV is a hot! Jerseylicious, Idols SA, The Kardashians, Brandy and Ray J, Project Runway are hot.But top of the pack is MTV’s Jersy Shore.If you have never heard of this MTV reality show, check out this Clip!The show has been so popular, that some of the sayings by the “actors” have found their way into every day student lingo. Ugly girls are now referred to as grenades, problems are “Situations”, getting lucky means someone is DTF (I shall not explain the last one though). Series are also still hot. Vampire Diaries, Spartacus, Gossip Girl being the more popular shows. And when it comes to local television, DSTV Channels: Vuzu, and music channels Channel O, MTV and MTV Base were popular amongst our focus groups. SABC 1’s Live show on Fridays was popular amongst our black non DSTV focus group respondants. With all this said, one fact that rang true in our discussions was that students don’t like waiting for programming. They will make their own means to get the information they need, and with movies and series, this couldn’t have been any truer.
- When it comes to music: the Hip Hop and House genres are smoking hot.When it comes to House music, a special mention must be made of the 5FM’s Fresh Drive Ultimix at 6, and in particular DJ Kents mixes on Fridays. In our respondents eyes, these are hot!Hip Hop’s tale in South Africa is very close to the growth of the local hip hop music scene. With current nu school icons AKA, KhuliChana, Kwesta and old school Legends Pro (formerly Prokid), and BET nominees Teargas, making waves, Hip Hop is growing fast and hard in our market.When it comes to hot shows: The Fresh drive and Gareth Cliff’s Morning Show are hot. This is ofcourse according to the national focus groups.
- When it comes to on campus engagement, 3 promotions stood out in the focus group discussions.They are: Lucozade promotion, the Just Juice campaign, and the Vodacom Colour promotion.And before you think it’s fixed, I was just as suprized as you were that they happened to be SV Client’s campaigns. Clearly we must be doing something right. But the real story isn’t the brands that were hot. The true insight is what made these campaigns hot on campus.
- Prizes, the altur call of campus promotions. All the hot campus promo’s that the students mentioned featured great prizes. Gadgets are this years hot items for giveaways. Top of the list is Smartphones with king BlackBerry Smartphone still ruling the roost. The iPad 2 is a hot items to get along with vouchers.However whilst these are the it items, during the focus group Headphones also got mentions. An essential part of the student gear, Headphones or earphones are a valuable prize item. But we are not talking about run in the mill earphones. R1k Beats by Dre earphones. Skull Candi earphones, Premium headphones are hot!
- Celebrities make the world of a difference at campus events.The higher the profile, the greater the pulling power, the better the brand engagement. And because they are icons and role models, what they say earns you the much sought after mind share brands fight hard for.But use relevant celebrities. Hot at the moment are SABC 1’s LIVE show presenter Bonang. Trevor Noah and JR are also hot on campus promo’s. Men of the moment, AKA and KhuliChana are hot at the moment.
- The highly contested media space battle for which media mix is the best to use on campus is the hardest share battle. The key factor is this battle is time. What you say in a poster, flyer or SMS is crucial to engagement. Without a campus media strategy you run the risk of your brand not being noticed. However with posters, flyers, SMS, Facebook pages, and twitter pages are all vital cogs in the media strategy at one level.But this still begs the question, which of these media platforms is hot?
- Word of mouth is hot. Focus group students say they would rather trust a promoter, brand ambassador or even a friend with your brands experience over flyers and posters.The reason? They can engage, and ask questions. But word of mouth alone needs to be backed up with a media platform. Facebook and SMS are hot. Why? If your brand is cool enough or hot enough, they will make the effort of checking out your Facebook page, and even read your SMS. This is not to say that posters and flyers are dead. They too play their part in remaining top of mind after the human contact.
- But there are guidelines you must follow.Don’t follow them and your media platform will not be hot.Less is more. The less text you have the better your chances of being remembered. Your design matters. They noticeQuality is an issue. It translate to how seriously you take your campaign or your interaction with them And finally keep it simple. Time is crucial, and they don’t reserve time just for your campaign. It must be worth their time.And then we move onto our final category. Consumption habits. In a world where students live in various places, @ home, @res, in digs…the level of need and spending varies.But one common item rings true for all students. Alcohol. Students drink, and they drink big. Brand loyalty in this market can be traded up for getting drunk, fast and hard. But some brands fight this battle well.
- Heineken is one of these brands that does well according to the focus groups. The brand status is the reason for this brand popularity. It is seen as the drink of choice in bars, clubs, and when just chilling with mates. It is just a cool beverage to have when partying. However when they want to get there fast: Russian Bear is king. Price and the “impact” make the purchasing decision.
- And when it comes to brand switching:Student Discounts and brand appeal are very hot topics when it comes to consumption habits. Product image, experience of usage - whether sample or advice from a friend and price are all key components students use when deciding to switch products.Brands and stores that are able to offer discount deals will get the repeat business.
- Experience is what students live forThey take their friends advice Status is importantMake an effort when marketing to them. They noticeUse social media wisely, everyone else is on it