MUMBAI: The Indian youth is very dynamic and will soon get bored of social networking sites. This will lead to the emergence of a new space, said Diesel senior VP Sumeet Yadav while speaking at a session themed “Follow me” at MTV’s Youth Marketing Forum 2011.
Responding to a question from the audience on the rural youth’s presence in the current scene, Yadav said: “Rural youth is not behind. Many of our campaigns on social networking sites have attracted enormous number of youth from the so-called B-towns; sometimes more than the urban youth. The curiosity is increasing in every part of the country.”
Answering a question, Yadav agreed that there are many local social community sites, and the company is planning to tap into this growing trend.
It was also felt that to get the youth hooked on, just having a youth brand is not enough. “The telecommunication service brand is different from clothing or an FMCG product. It’s not something the consumer can associate with. So we have to do a lot of brand building exercises and offer more lucrative plans,” Virgin Mobiles head marketing communications Anant Pal Singh Gill said.
Meanwhile, Google head of content partnerships Amit Agrawal boasted that the Internet giant has reached a point where it doesn‘t need to reach out to the youth. But he added that Google is still creating spaces where youth can come and interact. “We don’t have to reach out to the youth any more, we have to create spaces where youth come and interact. We have to engage them,” he said.
Media Transasia India CEO and publisher Piyush Sharma, meanwhile, discussed the strategies they adopted while launching ‘Maxim’, the general interest magazine for men.
“When launching the magazine, our cover pages featured Bollywood actresses and other Indian celebrities; the response has been amazing towards Indian celebrities,” Sharma said, implying that they don’t need International celebrities to sell the magazine amongst Indian youth.
The panel also agreed that Pepsi has been one of the most successful youth brands in the country. Since its inception, the brand’s campaign has been consistent with the communication it has with its target audience.
It was also unequivocally agreed that it would be very difficult to launch Playboy in India.
