It’s the youth issue, and in a strategy first, we’ve given the entire report over to teens. Typically the editorial team picks the content we think is the most relevant, but this year, it was time for a ‘reality’ check. With the help of Youthography, we recruited three teenage journalists (well, they kept journals, so that qualifies), and asked them to record a typical week in their lives. To get a sense of how media is consumed, how brands are perceived, and what it takes to make an impression in their world, read on. (See TeenSpace, page 61.)

We’ve also focused on successful youth campaigns elsewhere in the issue. The final instalment of Media Deconstructed reveals the best youth connection plans, and The Back Page, courtesy of Carat, helps you understand youth in the most literal sense.

The common thread here is that this generation does not like being ‘marketed to.’ So, to get a read on the new school of ad thought, strategy spoke to two agencies that are tapping into what they respectively describe as culture economy, and interactivism.

NYC- and Amsterdam-based StrawberryFrog, run by ex-pat Canadians, has a knack for getting noticed in unconventional ways. The agency took Onitsuka Tiger sport shoes from a forgotten ’60s retro brand five years ago to selling over 400 million pairs globally, without a whiff of traditional advertising. Instead, they used tactics such as having the Tiger choir from the Asics factory in Japan perform their version of old soccer songs during the World Cup. Uma Thurman wore the sneaks in Kill Bill, and Frog maxed that by creating short films that ran prior to the film’s premieres.

Agency founder Scott Goodson keynoted and chaired the Global Future Marketing Summit last month so strategy checked in with him on youth marketing. On a rare spring-like day during March Break, on the patio of the agency’s New York penthouse, Goodson described Gen Y as a consumer group of honesty. ‘They don’t need crap marketed to them. They have an enormous appetite for a bigger world. They don’t need to be led by the nose – they want to find it and be a part of it.’ To achieve this, Goodson says, ‘a brand has to be authentic and lead culture…. The new method is working with consumers: ‘Hey bud, what ideas do you have?” And to succeed? One more thing: ‘The brand needs to provide real tangible value.’

Goodson says this entails understanding the consumer, being part of culture and encouraging interactivity. Brands he feels get it range from Al Gore and Apple, to Scion and Nike ID.

On that note, Interactivism was the focus of a recent client and staff briefing hosted in Soho by Taxi’s New York office. Presenters uniformly pointed to brands which are creating forums for two-way dialogue as the ones to take cues from. Taxi chair/CCO Paul Lavoie kicked off the sessions with this thought: ‘Doubt the conventional, create the exceptional.’ To illustrate the compelling need to shift gears from media spend to content spend, Taxi Montreal president Daniel Rabinowicz described today’s consumer as ‘linked up, hooked up, mobile, skeptical and opinionated’ adding that as prosumers ‘they are part of the story.’

Brands that succeed, they argue, add value and involve the consumer, via viral, CGM and virtual interaction. Much of which defies labelling as advertising. The sources of inspiration tapped everything from sci-fi techy tactics like hypertags and QR codes, to art projects.

Rabinowicz explains that Taxi coined the phrase interactivism to convey that what’s needed to connect in this environment is not merely a new medium, as an add-on, ‘it’s a recognition that it takes a new vision.’ While this applies for all demos, it’s especially true for youth.

Beyond observing a decidedly strong wind of change from Canada blowing through the NYC ad scene, I can’t help but notice that the agencies that are excited by the new environment are flourishing, and that the marketers that are embracing it – like Dove and Axe – are changing the game. As Taxi VP, design & interactive CD Steve Mykolyn puts it: ‘If you’re not out looking for new ideas where art and commerce meet, you’re standing still.’

Cheers,mm Mary Maddever, exec editor, strategy/MIC