Kategori Strategy

When I am presenting our ethnographic findings about media habits amongst the younger generation, it sometimes feels like I am talking about a different tribe. Almost like the old anthropologists, that travelled to Africa or Asia, coming back to describe totally unknown habits and customs from their exotic fieldwork far, far away from home. 

Media people cluster all young people in a group called ”young adults” or worse ”digital natives” based on age. If media companies aim to create business strategies that will work for the young consumer, they have to understand their actual needs and wants. They need to segment based on meaning, for example, what is news today, is it knowledge, in that case which kind of knowledge is meaningful and why is that so? Maybe we sound like this nice picture done by Per Lublin, talking in strange tribe language…

Youths are very skilled in selecting what’s real and what’s phony in the commercialized world. Sometimes a simple message – just telling like it is by a person they trust – is all it takes for a commercial to get across as honest and trustworthy.  ”I really like Dogge Doggelitos commercial for Elgiganten”, Omar (17 years old) says. ”Genuine, sincere and frank. It tells it like it is. And they give you the actual price. And… you get a bike. Look, I really like this.”

[youtube]p2rhaUZ84oM[/youtube]

Identity brands are positioned in the consumer’s daily life rather than in their minds. That’s why knowledge about cognitions and the buying decision process won’t help you if that’s what you are trying to accomplish.

You need to understand the consumer’s identity projects, their desires and anxieties in their everyday life, collectively constructing and maintaining their identities. Those kinds of deep and empathic understanding are the basis for Cultural Branding, the set of strategic principles that guide the building of strong identity brands, in which consumers’ emotionally invest and stay faithful to.

Elliot, R. & Kritsadarat, W. (1998), Brands as Symbolic Resources for The Construction of Identity, International Journal of Advertising, vol. 17 February, 131-144

Inspired by Zeus Jones.