Mr. Youth

In a prior entry, I wrote about Mr. Youth which is a company that specializes in marketing to youths. As their website says, "Mr. Youth continues to help household and emerging brands further penetrate the youth market with defining and results-oriented marketing initiatives." You can explore the Mr. Youth website which provides information about the company, their team, services, portfolio of work they have done, press they have received, and current events they are involved in. Mr. Youth offers a variety of services, in which they work with a brand to choose which service fits best. Experiential marketing, a newer technique, brings a brand to life in ways not yet imagined, since "Generation Y is the touch and feel generation." By using techniques such as brand mobile tours, product demonstrations, and brand samplings, experiential marketing allows teens to experience a product. Another tactic that Mr. Youth uses is Guerilla Media. Kids are responding less and less to traditional media advertising, since they are now in control of their "media consumption" with the increasing use of iPods, Tivo, and the Internet. Other services include stunts, event sponsorship, or whatever you can possibly think of. One last service is campus media. According to their website, Mr. Youth has a proprietary placement system allowing its clients to reach 2,200 college newspapers, 400 top college radio stations, and other youth media outlets around the country.

The Mr. Youth website provides case studies to some of the work they have done. These studies include the challenge they were presented with, the objectives, Mr. Youth's answer, and the results. For example, in 2003, the WB Television Network wanted to promote the network and its sponsors to college students, which led to the idea for the WB on Campus 2003. The objectives were to raise brand and sponsor awareness, local network interaction, and drive tune-in. Mr. Youth helped the WB execute its rockin national college tour event with emerging bands, such as The Format and Socialburn. The results included satisfied sponsors, thrilled college students, and millions of impressions.


I have begun noticing an increasing number of companies like Mr. Youth are emerging. With the growing popularity of marketing to college students and other youth markets, brands need help to find ways to market to these unique demographics. As many articles have mentioned, college students are responding less to traditional advertising. Students control their media; they listen to their own music on their iPods, record television shows on Tivo where they can fast foward the commercials, and for news and information they use the Internet. With companies specializing in the youth market, they can focus on new ways to reach this demographic. I found the Mr. Youth website to be extremely interesting, especially as someone who is studying the advertising and marketing field. College students want a chance to experience a brand or product, not just be told about it. I have a feeling that we will be seeing more brands using services like Mr. Youth in order to reach the college and youth market in the near future.