Lil talks about intimacy, immediacy and engagement in terms of communication. She mentions authenticity and going beyond the safety of simple formulas’ when making / writing an ad. Loyalty to the brand DNA as opposed to inconsistent tonality and my fave quote “we want the brands who bring us these services to be like some kind of cool parental figure” which demonstrates perfectly the most common mistake marketers make when trying to reach the youth demo….its not about reaching out, its about letting them in which, leads perfectly to her point about letting the consumer get involved.

Take Lady Gaga as a perfect example of a successful ‘youth brand’ she encourages her ‘customers’ or monsters as she calls them to record her shows and post ‘em on YouTube and bans professionals doing the same. Wonderful UGC.

Lastly her social media comment, I’ve said it a 100 times before and in exactly the same way but still the locally generated social media lacks that authenticity and effort.

I may feel a little personally offended by HOW she said it, because I’m 36, but that has more to do with me and should not get in the way that WHAT she said is correct.
If communicating with youth, embrace their attitude and language within the confines of your brand DNA without prejudice. If you don’t know how to do that, call me…..I’ll try and bring Lil along to provide balance to the force.

The first thing I took out of it (and generally agree with) is that younger people targeting young people will often nail tone of voice and channel choice with more intuitive accuracy than older people can. That's not saying older people can't do it, just that younger people often do it faster, smarter and better.

The other point (one that everyone seems to agree on) is that there's nothing worse than a brand moving outside of who it is and trying to be "yoofy".

Every bank does it every year at O'week – some better than others.

I don't think "handing a brand over" to anyone can ever be a good idea, but when hiring consultants to find the best way to communicate a message to young people, surely it's always a good idea to have some "young" people in that mix. Make it a team game.

Anyway, that's what I got out of it. It's not really rocket science, but it did push a few buttons… guess that's young people for you!

Lets focus on the argument. As other writers have gracefully highlighted; if you buy the idea that only young people should be permitted to write for young audiences, then only old people should be permitted to write for old audiences, and only males ought to be eligible to write for guy audiences etc etc. You don't need to stretch the central argument very far before it snaps completely.

The second argument, the underlying position, is that young people need to be written to. That somehow if a marketer or anyone tried to communciate with young people that this young audience will only conect or comprehend if the writing is put in "their' language.

An insult really. Young people are very good at taking all communicaitons at face value. To illustrate the point, give an 18 year old girl a copy of Murakami's Norwegian Wood. There's a novel by a guy, a man aged 61 actually, and probably of a different culture (unless our young reader is Japanese.)

But see if she doesn't climb right into the novel, adore it, get transported by it.

Young people don't live in a youth ghetto. The live on the same planet as a lot of other people, and are adept at reading stuff written from different perspectives.

Rather than hand your brand over to young people if you want to reach them, the marketer has alternatives routes to achieve an effective communication. One of these is really simple: Just write or communicate honestly and with respect.

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But as someone who works with writers all day… Plankton's words are spot on.

I have studied every one of our writers styles and while they are all great in their own right…the authority on youth…is youth.

They live and breathe this stuff guys. It's intuitive….and it shows ever so subtly in their writing.The English is less perfect. The slang is more casual. The heart is more on the sleeve.

As for young and good writers..Lil is young…and really good. I have worked with her on several projects and in the online space, she nails it. She is very talented.

The trick is to team good young writers up with experienced writers who can draw on research and strategy. We do this and it works really well.

And yes, if Spencer is the guy I'm thinking of, his youth research and Lil's writing style would be a good combo. Kind of problem and solution eh.

Plankton, I fully agree with your central argument: that writing for a young audience is for "young AND good writers."

It is a bit conceited to think that anyone over age X (or is it age Y?) has somehow invalidated their capabilities. Just as it is conceited that anyone UNDER age X (or is it Y?) is similarly invalid.

Talent comes in all shapes, sizes and ages.

For me it’s more than just understanding the market, it’s being able to keep up with them. The youth of today are so much more tech savvy than you realise.
Not only are they highly skilled in the latest technology, they also understand the need to stay current. They will continue to learn, keeping up to date with every advance.

Youth today have a natural affinity for technology and social media that older writers will struggle to find. It’s a generational gap that few can cross convincingly.

So while I appreciate that you can use an iPhone Duncan, it doesn’t make you special, it just makes you normal.

That approach was big in US broadcasting in the 60s and 70s – and was referred to strategically as "LOP or Least Objectionable Programming" and so we got cutting edge TV like "The Love Boat" and "My Mother the Car."
Quaint – but research seldom works like that unless you have a marketer whose strategy is still about LOP or thinks that a high average score – a big vanilla result – is somehow better than a result that is more polarised.
I can't comment on the researchers you use or what you or your clients ask them to deliver.

There are all kinds of measures that can tell us whether a TVC or concept has an x-factor and is capable of getting the cut-through and water-cooler mileage that one hopes for.

Are young people less predictable than others? I'd say by and large "not particularly." They still have fundamental needs and motivations – and most are much more conservative, middle of the road, enjoy a BBQ with their folks etc than most marketers (or researchers) expect. Thats not me making a judgment – that's the 18-24s saying it themselves.

When I'm creating ads that pass through research without a hitch, I can be sure I'm not doing anything remotely exciting at a cultural level.

Kudos to strategists that are able to open creative avenues, but in the vast majority of cases, all strategy attempts to do is remove possibilities.

In a world where a panda fighting with a tree branch is getting more views than your so-called viral, you really have to wonder if young people are as predictable as you'd like to be able to tell your clients they are.