Youthopia and the Generation Game

Kids Grow Old Young or KGOY is a well known concept regarding children, and today’s children certainly seem to be getting older younger.

But the lesser discussed topic is what I call Adults Grow Young Older, or as the Sunday Times more eloquently put it recently “downaging”. This is where age is no longer viewed as a milestone that dictates music, fashion, travel or even lifestyle.

I’m not referring just to the traditional grey market of Mick Jaggers and Helen Mirrens. There’s also evidence that the forty plus age group struggle to accept typical middle age trappings, and are not willing to let go of their thirties’ attitudes lightly. And whilst physiologically puberty is now starting earlier, teenage behaviour is extending beyond the teens as their dependency on the home and parents now continues well into their twenties.

This downaging has serious marketing repercussions:

Firstly, the segments and categories we typically create as marketers need to be seriously overhauled and even then should not be viewed as rigid.

Secondly, the ubiquitous power struggle between parent and child has shifted not only towards power sharing but significantly, also towards brand sharing. Some years back BRANDchild (by Martin Lindstrom and Patricia Sey, Kogan Page Publishing) told of children’s growing influence on adults’ brand purchases, but now the dividing line between brand appeal for adults and children is distinctly blurred.

I have long said children have an important impact on brands, but this segmental shift means the Youth Effect is everywhere. So whilst KGOY is a key emotional driver for the youth market, Youthtopia is an aspiration for all of the other age categories. Marketers, take note.

Sustainable ethics

Unilever’s recent sustainability drive is being questioned in marketing circles, and no doubt in shareholder circles too.

But there’s real insight in this move, if you care to look a little deeper:

• To start with, the drive is accredited to listening to consumers. Unilever is not alone in recognising consumer’s growing conscience and their willingness to engage with credible trustworthy brands, The Food and Drink Federation (FDF UK) for example has also created a new sustainable practice.

• And of further significance, is that sustainability will now sit within Unilever’s marketing remit, as opposed to perhaps being the adjunct to strategy that CSR too often is. After all 'sustainability' is a consumer message that market oriented businesses must embrace and embed in their marketing, beyond the CSR report

• There’s also evidence to suggest that shareholders are less sceptical about such initiatives now. Investec’s new sustainable message and especially its ”Money isn’t everything” line is testament to this

• And recession or not, global brands are still cognisant of the need to keep sustainability on the agenda (www.bsr.org) - as per my previous blog

• Finally, the apparent hypocrisy of brands encouraging a behavioural change to consume less, can be countered by a message to consume more wisely - which incidentally also resonates particularly well in times of economic restraint. The emphasis here should be more about need than want, and critically about building trust that generates gains in terms of loyalty and growing a customer base.

But what pleases me most about this announcement, is that it is yet another indication of a genuine move towards business conducting itself more ethically, and the clear evolution of what corporate citizenship should, and can, be.