Normal human tendency is to label what one doesn\u2019t understand. And so we call the younger members of society by various names \u2013 youth, teens etc. By putting them into categories of age, we claim complete understanding of what they are, what moves them, and what they want, in effect adopting convenient disguise for the fact that we actually don\u2019t have a clue.<\/p>\n
My personal favourite term is \u201ctweens\u201d. In my dictionary, tweens are that magical, difficult, weird age somewhere in the region of 10-16 years, give or take a couple of years, when one is not quite an adult to be allowed an opinion, and not quite young enough to be indulged one. I believe that is why rebellion is the hallmark of the tweens and the teens.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s look at the broad segment of the young (under 20) population \u2013 about 450 million individuals in India are estimated to be below 20 years of age. 105 million individuals are in the age group of 15-19 years, already in their early years of discretionary consumption. About 112 million individuals are in the 10-14 years segment \u2013 within 5 years many of these will be making career choices, and in another 5 years most would have already begun earning and spending. Imagine the power of the tweens and the teens.<\/p>\n
However, this is not one homogenous mass of youngsters who think in the same way. Some, of course, will be a typical marketer\u2019s delight \u2013 gulping heavily-advertised colas and wolfing down pizzas and burgers at a birthday party with their pals, while demolishing each other on the latest game console. Others may only be aspiring to acquiring a fraction of such a lifestyle in their later years. Many \u2013 too many \u2013 will not only not have these things, but may not even be able to dream of a lifestyle that looks much different from their parents.<\/p>\n
Some are motivated by firang<\/em> lifestyles, and may look at the earliest opportunity to apply for a student visa in the west. Others are surprisingly loyal to the idea of staying within the country, and actually contributing to progressing it. An increasing number find their \u201cIndian skin\u201d very comfortable to wear, even while moving in rhythm with a semi-westernized lifestyle.<\/p>\n They\u2019ve got a whole bunch of different ideas about relationships. To many, career options are always wide open and whoever works for life in one job may have no other options. Yet, when it comes to personal friends, the buddies from pre-school may still be the ones they hang around with.<\/p>\n Clearly age, then, is not the key differentiating or grouping factor. Neither, it would seem, is income or education. SEC segmentation more or less breaks down when dealing with the youth. There are many, possibly hundreds of segments for a marketer to deal with.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s hot\u201d may change every week \u2013 if it\u2019s really hot, it may stay around 3-4 months. RDB ( Rang De Basanti<\/em> ) was a protest against the society the young are inheriting, and its candle-light march was emulated for many a cause. But Munnabhai<\/em> is cool today, and Gandhigiri is now the road to follow. On the other hand \u2013 are these really two sides of the same coin?<\/p>\n Some very global trends catch on very fast, while others are uniquely Indian.<\/p>\n So how does one make sense of this kaleidoscope? How is a marketer to predict what will appeal to the most consumers? How can we lead the consumers into our store, to our brand counter, to the product that we want to promote?<\/p>\n If I were to pick one learning for the youth market that made \u2013 and still makes \u2013 youth markers successful, it is the fact that they do not predict fashion and trend. They do not attempt to lead the consumer but follow diligently. They identify the opinion leaders, identify with them, and understand what\u2019s hot with them. Then they place their bets \u2013 a lot of them, well-spread out. Sure, not all of them are right, but it\u2019s a whole lot better than trying to predict fashion 8-12 months in advance.<\/p>\n An equally critical step is to let go of the trend even as it is being picked up by others. After all, if you\u2019re really with it, by now you ought to have identified the next hot trend rather than flogging the same horse that everyone else is on.<\/p>\n Here a newsflash, the youth are bright, for all the appearance of vacuity; extremely opinionated, despite the apparent boredom they display; fully-charged up with the current domestic social concerns and a clear view \u2013 well-informed or not \u2013 of what\u2019s happening around the world.<\/p>\n We\u2019ve seen some successes in the Indian market, with a few companies being at the forefront of trying to understand and cater to the youth with offerings that are innovative and promotions that talk to them in their language. And yet, most companies are still working at them in the same mould as they were a decade ago, while others are simply trying to transplant strategies that worked in another country.<\/p>\n The largest market opportunity in decades is going a-begging. What\u2019s going to be your platform to make the connection? What\u2019s the relevance of your message? Unless you\u2019re listening to the youth, they\u2019re unlikely to be listening to you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" About 450 million individuals in India are estimated to be below 20 years of age. 105 million individuals are in the age group of 15-19 years, already in their early years of discretionary consumption. About 112 million individuals are in the 10-14 years segment \u2013 within 5 years many of these will be making career choices, and in another 5 years most would have already begun earning and spending. Imagine the power of the tweens and the teens. Devangshu Dutta’s column from The Economic Times. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[25,27,212,286,265,215,33,60,36,62,37,131,43,44,46,1],"tags":[102,124],"class_list":["post-1842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apparel","category-branding","category-consumer","category-customer-relationship","category-entrepreneurship","category-food-grocery","category-footwear","category-india","category-lifestyle-fashion","category-market-research","category-marketing","category-product-development-and-design","category-retail","category-soft-goods","category-strategy","category-uncategorized","tag-consumer-markets","tag-strategy"],"yoast_head":"\n