The taste buds of youths keep changing with the trend. Especially in today’s scenario, social media platforms have a significant influence on their life. Therefore, most organizations focus on digital marketing as a key for marketing because they receive overwhelmed responses and feedback from people across the globe.

What is Youth Marketing?

source: lapaas.com/what-is-youth-marketing-11-strategies-that-sells-the-most/

According to Wikipedia, Youth Marketing is a strategy used in the marketing and advertising area directed towards young people, majorly into smaller groups based on their age between 11-34. The buying behaviour of teens and adults determined the trends that other demographic groups adopt. (Source)

India peaks the list as the world’s largest youth population. India has more than 50% of people below 25 and more than 65% below 35. Therefore, in a country like India, marketing among youths is challenging because they continually evolve with ideas and buy things that benefit them.

You must have seen the advertisements of Lay’s, Pepsi, and many of your favourite brands. Can you recall the actor/actress who did that role? Why would these brands choose Ranbir Kapoor, Salman Khan and other celebrities in such advertisements? Because their target audience is mainly children, youths, and young adults, they use such people in ads to grab their attention.

Now let’s discuss how marketing influences youth buying behaviour, especially regarding food brands.

Importance of youth marketing for food products

Brands across all sectors need to capture this audience because it’s a large category from children to young adults, but they will be the most influential customers of tomorrow. Marketers believe that customers build relationships with the brand when they are young, which will be taken over and be maintained when they get older.

One of the significant advantages of attracting them is that they influenced their friends too knowingly or unknowingly by choosing specific products they like.

Understanding why youth marketing is vital to your brand is just as crucial as understanding youth marketing. Regardless of the product or service offering, no one can ever estimate the power of youth popularity.

“Marketing aims to realize and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself” (Peter F. Drucker ).

We need to grab the attention of youths while marketing the brand, and for that, excellent quality content is required, following the trend.

If you think that youth marketing is only essential to famous brands, think again. Small businesses and general consumer goods sellers also have a lot to gain.

If I would ask you which is your favourite brand Maggi or Yippee? It might be confusing for at least some people. Do you think why these brands have a special attachment towards their audience?

That is because it is effortless to cook within less time, which attracts the youths. Though most teenagers are not experts in cooking, these brands made them have food independently. Therefore, it mainly attracts people who are not staying with their family and are busy with their own lives.

In the above case, both brands achieved marketing their target audience, which was mainly youths.   They tried to grab the youth attention by offers and varieties of the menu, which were new to Indian customers.

Even if youths cannot buy goods with their own money, they still influence how their parents spend on gifts; this also indicates that teenagers have more knowledge in shopping. Moreover, they did not hang on to one source of information and entertainment. Instead, they shift from one place to another, as they are more flexible and available with the resources than others also are always open to trying something new.

Strategies to influence youth

source: bloss.co.za/10-youth-marketing-trends-in-2020/

Today’s youth have more purchasing power than older generations because of various digital platforms to work and get in return, thus buying ability.

So, what do they desire from your brand, and what kind of relationship should you build with your youth marketing strategy? Therefore, you need to keep in mind that your brand should be more transparent and your competition is global. Consumers will only buy your brand if it reflects their core values.

They devour a large amount of content through TV, movies, games and the internet. In addition, companies often sponsor the most remarkable concerts, festivals, sports teams, and more.

The common strategies that most of the companies use to influence youth are as follows:

1. Sponsorships

Sponsorships are financial or in-kind support activities. Businesses sponsor events, trade shows, other sports events to reach their goals. It helps shape consumer attitudes, build brand awareness, generate leads and enhance business, consumer and VIP relationships.

It takes time but as long as you have a long-term plan to grip your investments.  It helps in building quality relationships where you get endless benefits if you put effort into it. Most organizations achieved a better position in the market mainly with the help of sponsorships.

For example, in most sports events, youth gets engaged easily – say Cricket in India– you can see multiple brands logos on the player’s shirts and the ground. Is there any benefit those companies get after investing a considerable amount? They will gain more popularity, and their brand will achieve brand equity.

2. The right type of interactions

Youth have specific needs for their communications with companies. When they interact as customers with the companies, they would mainly look for reliability, assurance and empathy. Hence, through valid interactions, you find connection points with them.

3. Engage to the right audience

It would help if you centre on a particular audience to promote your product. Companies that layout the same style everywhere are not going to find results at all. They need to focus on the youth audience only.

One of the best ways to appeal to youth is by tapping into their emotions. You can add their favourite phrases such as “You live only once” or represent their role models in your social media campaigns, which helps develop a deeper connection with them. Always make your company values known to consumers.

Unless your product reaches the audience, you won’t be able to grow with the competitors. In addition, consumers’ want something unique in your product, so try to engage your youth customers with that selling proposition.

For example, Dominos – the largest pizza chain in the world-realized that targeting a local audience is only feassible by adding some local taste in the flavours. So domino’s conquers the Indian market by offering Peppy Paneer, Kebab Pizzas, Cheese Burst Pizza, etc.

source: salesforce.com/ca/blog/2016/01/facebook-buyer-personas.html

4. Go to your audience (audience correct platform)

Try to get to know more about your audience, their interested areas, what media channels they are engaged in, such as TV, internet, media shows, and various trending areas in which they are actively involved.

Make sure your product is available in the respected channels. Then, grab their attention by creating a different kind of advertisement, which makes them pause and have a look at your website. Therefore, it reaches more people, and consumers will get recommendations regarding your site.

source: bloss.co.za/10-youth-marketing-trends-in-2020/

5.Usage of the same language as theirs:

The mode of communication is another essential aspect of marketing. The language we use for young audience needs to be different from adults in marketing.

There is always some trend in the young audience, a particular movie dialogue, a word, or any other phrases. So, constantly update your audience so that you can implement it in marketing. For example, around 70% of internet users prefer the Indic language over English. So, brands that follow this are getting more reach among their customers, giving them a whole new captive audience to engage with it.

Also Read: Social Media Graphic Design Guide For Small Businesses

Examples of food brand using Youth Marketing

1. Lays

Lay’s launched in India in 1995 and became one of the most prominent players in the potato chip market within five years. PepsiCo India has roped in Ranbir Kapoor, and Alia Bhatt as brand ambassadors for its potato chip brand Lays.

Both the actors are iconic faces in the Indian Bollywood industry with a substantial fan basis. Therefore, the company chose them for their advertisements, making people unique in this brand. It helped to influence the youths in adapting this brand as an emotion.

In 2019, the brand brought its global Smile campaign to India, which states that  ‘Lay’s Smile Deke Dekho’ The new Lay’s packaging features six different smiles that capture different moods and emotions through its various flavours.

The particular campaign made a significant trend in all the social media channels. Youths started to post pictures on their accounts, which they achieved in the new marketing model.

Source: instagram.com/lays_india/

Source: instagram.com/lays_india/

2. Coca-Cola:

The new ad of Coca-Cola features Ranbir Kapoor as a brand ambassador to strengthen brand love amongst the youth.  Coca-Cola India has taken the personalized campaign further with #SayItWithCoke.

The campaign aims to deepen the brand’s connection with consumers’ by uniting them through a universal passion.  Vice-President Shrenik Dasani addressed that ‘In India, songs have always had a way of expressing emotions in a particular, memorable manner. That is what inspired us to bring to consumers our latest campaign, #SayItWithCoke, which invites them to share a Coca-Cola with someone to express their heartfelt emotions through the words of their favourite songs.

They had a clear idea of the Indian market and mostly Indian youths as their audience. Hence, they achieve success in this market.

Source: instagram.com/cocacolaindia/

Source: instagram.com/cocacolaindia/

3. Pepsi

Pepsi started in India with the phrase ‘Yehi hai right choice Baby’, one of the most notable campaigns, with celebrities such as Shah Rukh Khan, Aishwariya Rai, Priyanka Chopra and others.

“Pepsi’s campaign “My Pepsi My Way” has also been conceived, keeping the youth at the focus. The campaign drives in from an insight true of all youngsters today – the fact that they are opportunity grabbers who find their way to get what they want in life.

Source: instagram.com/pepsiindia/

Source: instagram.com/pepsiindia/

4.Mountain Dew

It is a beverage specially Made- for India. Being a much-loved brand, they are confident that youths will enjoy their new products.

The company said that the lemon-based beverage would be available in single and multiple serve packs across modern and traditional retail outlets also leading e-commerce platforms.

Their ‘Daar Ke Aagey Jeet Hai‘ anthem was very famous among young consumers, and most influential brands appreciated it.

Source: instagram.com/mountaindewin/

Source: instagram.com/mountaindewin/

5. Thums Up

Thums Up has the highest market share in Coca Cola India segment. The primary target audience for the drink was youth, mainly between the age limit of 15-45 years. It also has a solid fizzy taste that goes very well with Indian taste buds.

Thums Up has been the believer in marketing and hence has adopted aggressive promotion policies. It was one of the major companies to advertise on a full-time basis in the 1980s.

In recent years, Thums up has made an overwhelming campaign with Ranveer Singh and Diva Dhawan. It was an action-packed summer campaign, and thums up achieved greater attention with this campaign. It actually made to a second rising of thums up in Indian market.

Source: facebook.com/thumsupofficial

Source: facebook.com/thumsupofficial

Conclusion

Here we see how various brands promote their products to their target audience, i.e. Youths. Companies have researched youth trends, they make an ad and market their product accordingly that made them unique from their competitors.

The youth’s mindset, needs and wants keep changing with time. Therefore, organizations must adapt to the trend and market their brand accordingly. Your brand should always be their first preference; you need to convince them and make sure they get value in return from your product.

If you have any queries regarding designing your products packaging, branding and marketing strategies, you can reach us anytime at Social Media Agency. We’ll help you with our skills and abilities and put your product in a better position in the market.