MARKETING MIX

Assignment 2

Social Media and Youth

Thesis Statement

Social media has changed the world of marketing. Organizations are moulding their marketing techniques that are more aligned towards social media. Youth is a growing market and an important one, and organizations want to capitalize on them. Social media is an integral part in the lives of youth now, and they tend to spend a large number of time in the virtual world (Thackeray et al, 2008, p. 5-15). In this paper, we would be discussing the marketing techniques that are being applied by the companies, in retrospect of the 4 P's of marketing, and how companies are used social media as a channel to market youth.

Introduction

The youth market is a big and growing market and young adults constitute an important segment within it. They act as a social category and form a distinctive consumer group, having their own unique consumption patterns and culture. Today, because there are so many companies targeting young adults, it becomes more and more important to understand their consumption patterns (Thackeray & Neiger, 2009, p. 22-35). As the demands of youth changes overtime, so does the marketing concepts. Lately, the social media has become a global force in the world of marketing. Organizations have identified social media as an important feature and used it as a tool for marketing their products and services, specifically targeting youth (Kaplan, 2010, p. 59-68).

Today's children are faced with a variety of new media where the distinctions between commercial and non commercial material are increasingly blurred, for example, when adversaries promote brands on line (Moore and Rideout, 2007; Lee et al, 2009). For this generation, television advertising represents only one aspect of their consumption experience and more current accounts have considered their engagement with a broader range of media including the Internet (Livingstone and Helsper, 2004; Tufte et al, 2005; Schor, 2006; Ekström and Tufte, 2007; Livingstone, 2009).

Discussion

In thinking children as consumers, we need to recognize the ubiquity of the marketplace in children's everyday lives and consider the ways in which they experience this materialistic world; be it through exposure to various forms of media, visiting retail stores, making requests for products, or purchasing goods with their own money (Ekström & Tufte, 2007, p. 54-980). With direct and indirect marketing to children on the increase, there is a question over how children engage with this materialistic world. A number of discussions, for example, around food marketing and childhood obesity, online activity and sedentary lifestyles, or increased materialism among the young tend to place children as hapless victims subject to the onslaught of marketing activity. While we have routinely excluded children from debates about consumption, manufacturers and retailers have long recognized the role of children as consumers and acknowledged their contribution to family decision making (Kline, 1993; Cross, 1997).

Social Marketing

Social marketing is a term that describes marketing and public relations campaigns to promote social change and awareness. Social marketing is specifically the use of commercial marketing tools (such as advertising and television commercials) to ...