Welcome, Guest [Sign In]

December 3, 2001 - Strategy Magazine
News

Youth Marketing
Youth marketers go undercover to tempt teens
Roach-bait marketing could damage brands, say analysts

by Lisa D'Innocenzo
page 1

Let's face it: The cool kids have way more influence on their popularity-seeking peers than even the most flashy, over-the-top mass media campaign. And a commercial wouldn't likely impel them to buy until the "in" crowd first deemed the product worthy.

Hence, interest in so-called "word-of-mouth" or "undercover" initiatives continues to rise among youth marketers, who are always eager to pursue innovative methods to approach teens, and with good reason. In fact, U.S. consulting firm McKinsey & Co., reported last May that 67% of consumer goods sales are now directly influenced by word-of-mouth.

Specifically, there has been recent heightened activity in product seeding - whereby marketers outfit influencers in hopes of creating buzz about an item - and even "roach-bait marketing," also known as "roaching" - where actors are paid to engage consumers in conversations about a brand, in various locales, such as restaurants, bars, shopping centres or on the street.

Adam Starr, president of Montreal-based youth marketing company Gearwerx Content Networks, says that more brands are asking about roach marketing these days. In the last three months, he's received about 10 inquiries from interested parties compared to none previously.

Media saturation is the cause of the current infatuation with word-of-mouth marketing, particularly among corporations trying to appeal to media-savvy youth. "Even a number of years ago, if you ran a 30-second spot on the X-Files, you would reach a certain percentage of teens, but now with the Internet and TV saturation, you can't get that mass reach right away," explains Jeff Spriet, founder of Toronto-based guerrilla branding company Wiretap.

One new firm that has recently tapped into the undercover marketing movement is Matchstick, which opened its doors last February.

Matchstick founders Matthew Stradiotto and Patrick Thoburn practise product seeding, which entails finding the "influencers" of a specific demographic, showering freebies on them, and then sending them out to spread the word about a brand.

They already have plans to move into larger offices next month and have already seen promising results. In fact, Reebok Canada was so pleased with the outcome of its seeding program for its Urban Training line of athletic footwear last summer that it plans to hook up with Matchstick for two new product launch campaigns in 2002.

After outfitting 19- to 21-year-old women last June, sales dropped only when Reebok stopped seeding, says marketing manager Micki Rivers. "As long as we pushed that shoe, we had tremendous results."

Since opening for business, interest among marketers has been "phenomenal," according to Thoburn, who points out the client roster includes other big-name corporations like Unilever Cosmetics and Adidas-Salomon.

The "seeders" at Matchstick aren't paid actors; rather they are individuals chosen through a vigorous screening process that includes a market research questionnaire asking about lifestyle, as well as their response to the product in question. "It's very important they are turned on by the product," says Stradiotto, who also maintains that seeding doesn't fabricate buzz, but simply accelerates it, especially since no money changes hands. "There's nothing forced about it. We've never asked the seeders to behave in a way that's unnatural."

Quick Search