Youth study discounts celebrity factor

HONG KONG: A youth marketing survey found that tapping into the passions of young people rather than looking to engage mass, celebrity-driven strategies had more influence with this major market segment. The recently-released survey, Digital Tribes Series 2, conducted by youth marketing specialists, Filter, in conjunction with AMI, highlighted three leading trends to shape strategic marketing initiatives in Asia. The first was that keeping up-to-date with music, football and tech gadgets were the areas of greatest interest to the 15 to 24-year segment across Asia. The survey then measured these areas of general interest to discover which "tribes" demonstrated the highest level of passion. The music findings look set to break the mould of traditional youth marketing in Asia. "We looked at different music styles, such as R&B, commercial pop, techno and hip-hop and found that while commercial pop had more listeners, the smaller tribes of techno and hip-hop had much higher levels of passion," said Filter founder Ian Stewart. "This is interesting because a lot of the big brands go for the big celebrities which attract more people, but hip-hop, for example, is a part of people's lives. The implication is that you may reach more people, but you need to question how much relevance does that have," Stewart added. He expected to see more companies tapping into the passions of tribes, especially following San Miguel's backing of hard-core Chinese hip-hop act LMF. The spread of what the survey called the Japan Watchers phenomenon was the third trend influencing youth consumer choices in markets such as Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia, where Japanese products were preferred over US or European products.

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