That’s how ordinary brands deal with extraordinary issues – in average ways producing very average results.

However, I’d like to focus on how great youth brands are breaking the mold and doing something out of the ordinary.

Youth marketing is always redefining the parameters of what is acceptable. Bright individuals will always push the envelope however there will always be a marcomms department to keep them in check. That was one of the themes of my recent presentation to Vodafone on Youth, Loyalty and Trust and follows on from the Great Youth Brands Series on MobileYouth featuring Red Bull, Jones Soda and Toyota Scion.

Perhaps the best example of Uncommon Sense to date is how EA dealt with the apparent glitch in the latest release of Tiger Woods 08 that including the “Jesus Shot” – where Tiger could walk on water. Obvious mistake. Not just an obvious mistake, but a well known one – one youtube pundit (Levinator 25) made it public amassing over 600,000 views.

Embarrassment for EA? Yes, if it was handled using Common Sense.

However, check this out for sheer marketing brilliance

Tiger Woods 09 – Walk on Water

This is the result of individuals within an organization taking risky decisions to produce extaordinary results that substantially impact the brand in a positive way – that’s what I call Uncommon Sense. That’s the result of bypassing marcomms and challenging the notion of “that’s how it’s always been done”.

Ask yourself, would [#%0#2]youth[/#%0#2] react positively or negatively to this communication from EA then compare to what an average brand would do – ie a cover-up.

by Graham Brown

Mobile Youth Culture is often difficult to understand, especially when we spend so much of our time in the office and not the street. So, here’s a new post that may provide some insight by Graham Brown entitled Take your insights from the street not the lab: mobileYouth.org’s 7 laws of youth marketing covering the validity of using primary research such as focus groups in researching mobile [#%0#2]youth[/#%0#2] culture.

Consumer insights commissioning meaningless focus group primary research that confirms what they already know, e.g. “Would you pay £5 a month to download these ringtones?” Like Nike, Red Bull, Jones Soda, Jet Blue and the rest – get out on the street and start talking to your customers.

I thought about this for a while and was particularly prompted when I saw some new research out about the culture of gamers or other youth research insights from Motorola, which again like most research is heavy on the primary [#%1#2]research[/#%1#2]. Wouldn’t it be great to get out there and start videoing these people and getting some qualitative answers like mobileyouth’s own on-the-street videos or even participating in the universe of students such as our review of JuicyCampus earlier or insights such as those on Black Hipsters.

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