Global Youth Marketing Forum 2009: Youth uses mobile as a convergence device

The second day of the Global Youth Marketing Forum was held at the Taj Lands End in Mumbai. The forum aims to understand the psyche of today’s young consumer, in a bid to explore marketing opportunities.

The panel for the post-lunch session consisted of Anisha Motwani, executive vice- president - marketing and chief marketing officer - new markets, Max New York Life Insurance; Neeraj Roy, managing director and chief operating officer, Hungama Mobile and Suraja Kishore, vice-president, strategic brand planning, Lowe.

Motwani opened the session and spoke about the young consumer’s outlook towards financial planning. The young generation, which constitutes about 47 per cent of the Indian population, is expected to grow up to 55 per cent of the population by 2015. This generation is prone to spending and has a casual outlook towards saving for their future.

She spoke about how the youth needs to start saving at an early age to provide for a peaceful old age. She also suggested that young investors can take risks with their investments, while middle-aged people should stick to safer options.

Roy from Hungama focussed on how the digital medium can engage the youth. He said that the mobile phone has become a convergence device and is being used as a multi-purpose tool for browsing, watching videos, and so on. India also has the fourth largest number of Internet users in the world (5.7 million), and this number is expected to increase over the next few years.

He cited that for the top 10 websites of the world, such as Yahoo.com and Orkut.com, the traffic out of India is far more than traffic out of certain developed countries.

Kishore, who has worked on campaigns such as Tata Tea and Idea, says that youth is not defined by age, but by behaviour and attitude. He said that Lowe used the same insight for its campaigns such as the Jaago Re campaign for Tata Tea. Tea, as a category, has certain clichés associated with it, such as being a ‘wake up’ drink or showing a woman stirring her cup of tea. Lowe wanted to stay away from this, and hence, they explored the other side of youth – wherein they are portrayed as being socially responsible.

Kishore added that for the youth, a mobile is far more than a basic device; it is an identity of sorts. For example, when you meet an old friend suddenly, they will immediately ask for your cell number. So, the mobile number becomes your identity. Lowe used this insight for the Idea ‘Caste War’ campaign, which became popular among the youth as well.

He ended the session by saying that the boundaries between creative thinking and strategic thinking are fast getting blurred.