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Dina Pradel is the vice president and general manager of Y2M: Youth Media and Marketing Networks, based in Boston, MA. Y2M is a strategic marketing services company that focuses exclusively on the college and recent graduate market. The company was created specifically to connect clients with this group of individuals who are making first-time decisions regarding a variety of high-value products and forming potentially life-long brand loyalties.

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It Ain’t Just MySpace, Baby: Going Back to Basics Boot Camp for Youth Marketing

Written on
Apr 20, 2006 
Author
Dina Pradel  |
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It Ain’t Just MySpace, Baby: Going Back to Basics Boot Camp for Youth Marketing

We asked them “Which vehicle allowed you to sell the most product last year?” The answer was decidedly unsexy — hand-to-hand distribution of product information on campus. Old-fashioned, perhaps. Effective, yes. We have an obligation to stay abreast of new technologies and consumption habits, to educate our clients about new options, and to experiment with alternative methods of communication. But the stakes are too high to place all of a client’s chips on unproven media.

• “I’d like half off the open rate for a 1x insertion. Did I mention it’s a test?” Nothing steams me more than hearing a client request an online “test”campaign. My inevitable response: Would you run a “test” ad in Vogue magazine? Whether print or online, the function of a buyer is the same: reserving space in a given property during a specific time period. Once an ad has run successfully, both the agency and the publisher have fulfilled their promise to the client.

It’s up to the agency (hopefully in partnership with savvy publishers) to evaluate the performance of the creative AND the medium to determine if the campaign achieved its stated objectives, and if the client should continue investing in a given media property. Online advertising may be easier to measure, but even ROI-focused campaigns carry peripheral branding benefits. Think about what you’re really asking an online publisher the next time the words “show me you believe in your property (by heavily discounting it)” pass your lips.

Luckily, these misconceptions provide ample opportunity for interactive media professionals to do what we do best: keep our clients focused on results. After all, have the questions we ask ourselves and our clients really changed so much in the last year? What is our brand? How do we want consumers to experience our brand? What action are we asking consumers to take after interacting with our creative? Where will consumers be most receptive to our message?

We have more tools at our disposal than ever before, opening exciting possibilities for integrated campaigns that engage young consumers where they live, study, work, and play. We can harness our client’s enthusiasm for the novel, but temper it with a healthy dose of the fundamentals. After all, even in Huxley’s brave new world, the reactionary Savages turned out to have it pretty good.





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