How marketers are wooing the young minds!

The second session of the 3rd Global Youth Marketing Forum began with Sandip Tarkas, President, Customer Strategy, Future Group & CEO, Future Media (India) Ltd. He spoke on "Winning the Battle In-Store: Maximizing Shopper Marketing Among Young Consumer'. After which, Alok Bharadwaj, Sr. Vice President, Canon India elaborated on "Creative & Innovative Marketing ' The Changing Space'. He said one has to constantly refresh yearly, renovate every three years and reconstruct after every five years. Bharadwaj said, "Eveyrone's business desire is to grow and gain profits. Relationship marketing is a hotly debated issue today and customers give great insight as pointers for marketers." He continued by talking about the challenges of the next decade and stressed that it is now "word of net' more than "word of mouth'.

Alok Kejriwal, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, Games2win discussed on "Content is King'. He stressed on the fact that most people didn't know what marketing was. He went on about it in an unconventional way and said, "The beauty of the online media is that you can keep recreating".

The third session commenced with Ambika Sharma, CEO, Jagran Solutions. She spoke about how important it is to harness energy of the youth and channelize the power of youth to convince peers in the right direction. Then Rohit Sharma, Executive Director, Network Ad Sales, Turner International India Pvt. Ltd. spoke extensively on "Kids & Their Changing Dynamics in the Indian (Consumer) Family'.

Sharma said, "One must understand the level of influence youth has in the buying decision. Therefore one has to maximize the impact of communication on mediums where youth is most active. Also cartoons and humour works well."

The final session for the day began with Neville Taraporewala, Director, Advertising, Consumer & Online Business, Microsoft India discussing elaborately on "Making Sense of the World Youths Live in: Connecting with them in a Highly Engaging and Cost Effective Manner'. He stressed on how lifestyle of the youth specially the youth is getting more digital and therefore media and experiences are getting more connected. "Touch points are increasing. Most marketers do not know what to do with consumer data. Advertisers have started caring less about where and more about who," Taraporewala said.

The last speaker for the day was Ajai Jhala, CEO, BBDO/Proximity India who discussed on the topic, "Acts not Ads'. With examples, Jhala drove in the point that today youth were constantly attempting to define themselves and trying to establish what is it that they want. | By Janees Antoo [janees(at)adgully.com]