Hip hop's cool factor just plummeted (after an older college basketball coach nailed the Soulja Boy dance on camera - yikes) (Salon.com, day pass or subscription required)
- Cyber sex 2.0 (teens are using their cell phones for flirty texting and "cellular" sex...this issue made national news when an "American Idol" contestant was arrested for texting sexually explicit messages to a 12-year-old) (CBS)
- HBO makes its debut on iTunes (I guarantee you teen girls will be downloading "Sex and the City" on their computers) (CNET)
- Popsauce (a new ad network for video sites targeting 18-34s) (Media Post, reg. required)
- MTV Exit (and other examples of companies associating their brands with good causes. Plus Ypulse Mashup speaker Kark Carter on making "green" the new black, i.e. reaching people of color with a green message) (AdWeek) (AdAge.com, reg. required)
Dove recently interviewed 500 women in their 20s and discovered that no matter how much they accomplish, millennial females rarely feel satisfied. On the one hand, consistently working towards that next level of success leads to persistence and ambition, which is great. On the other hand, a void of fulfillment brings along an enormous sense of inadequacy, which leads to lifelong dissatisfaction.
Twenty-something women are more accomplished than ever before. More are climbing the corporate ladders and earning multiple graduate degrees, and this generation of women has opportunities that their mothers and grandmothers only dreamed about.
But a new study by Dove and Columbia University also say these young women are so engrossed in having it all by the time they are 30, they are not fully enjoying what they achieve. These women are being pressured by their inner voice to keep pushing for the next goal. Nothing is ever good enough and accomplishments go unrewarded and unappreciated.
This perfection complex causes girls to "collect" experiences to bulk up their six-page resumes instead of simply experiencing life. As a college student, I witness this on a daily basis. Girls go from class, to work, to the library where they study until the early morning hours. Everyone is in a competition to get the highest grades, make the most money, and tout the busiest schedule. Leisure time is almost looked down upon, in a "Don't you have anything productive to do?" kind of way.
Dove hopes to change the definition of "success" by ultimately convincing young women to enjoy the present moment instead of constantly focusing on next week, next month, and next year. We've seen Dove's Fresh Takes series, and though the purpose is admirable, I'm hoping they have other tactics up their sleeves to reach out to teens. To get their message across, they need to infiltrate young girls' lives in a way that 2-minute commercials shown during "The Hills" can't.
The 2008 Ypulse Mashup in San Francisco is just a few months away (only a couple of weeks before the "early adopter" deadline) so I wanted to give readers another sneak preview by interviewing one of our keynote speakers, Antti Öhrling, the co-founder of Blyk. Blyk is the first free ad supported mobile service for 16-24 year-olds in the world, but I'll let Antti tell you more...
Ypulse: What inspired the concept for Blyk, i.e. "free" ad supported mobile for youth?
Antti Öhrling: I became active in mobile marketing back in 1999 (when many ad execs were just starting to take the internet more seriously) and my advertising agency was a founding member of the Wireless Advertising Association in the US. Some years later I was sitting in a conference where mobile marketing was being discussed and having been involved in mobile in its infancy I started contemplating, "Why is this industry not moving...and what would it take to move the media forward?" My conclusion -- you must create a service that people will want, and you must give advertisers a simple and effective way to access to these people. Ultimately, to attract users to a service you have to give them something good in return, and the people to provide this good stuff, it seemed natural, should be the advertisers. The ideal solution then would be one that made this transaction as simple as possible: advertiser gives value to user. Other media already did this, TV channels, even some newspapers. Why couldn't mobile do the same thing? "It needed a completely new kind of mobile operator, one that had the ethos of a media.'' I knew the media and advertising element. To make this groundbreaking new idea into reality, it also needed someone who knew networks and the entire mobile industry.
It was at this point that I approached Pekka Ala-Pietilä, a lifetime friend and the former President of the Nokia Corporation and together we came to the conclusion that we'd have to build a completely new service from the ground up -- one where advertisers gave users value directly -- in other words, a complete mobile operator that was funded by advertising.
In January 2006, we gathered a group of experts in Helsinki from the worlds of mobile technology, design, media strategy, advertising, corporate consultancy and finance, and they were briefed to kill the idea. The only problem was that they could not find a reason why it wouldn't work. In fact, they got pretty excited about it. They all agreed that, with the massive proliferation of mobile devices, the potential market was right there.
It was at this point that the seed of an idea took roots and the concept of Blyk was born (the name popped up somewhere between a smoke sauna in Helsinki and a dip in the ocean...)
YP: What has the feedback been like so far from users? What do they LOVE? What have they been critical of? What do they want?
AO: They absolutely love the Blyk concept. They're telling us that free is good and ads are good. The more they can interact with the ads the more they prefer them. After all, mobile is a communication channel by its nature.
What have they been critical of...well actually, they want more communications from brands (ads). Non-targeted ads with no response opportunity (as in traditional media advertising) score the lowest. Overall I'd say that's a lot more of a positive for us vs. a criticism.
YP: What can U.S. mobile carriers learn from what you're doing?
AO: Going after mobile advertising and young people requires sole focus on the topic. There is no half-way house. It is a wrong assumption to think that mobile is an extension of internet. That model does not work in such a private environment as mobile. Mobile is all about relevance and engagement not frequency and reach.
YP: Is there an ad campaign that has been particularly successful so far? Which one and why?
AO: There have been over 600 campaigns on Blyk to date and while the average response rate to advertising campaigns is 29%, many are significantly higher.
Penguin Books for example ran a campaign on Blyk to promote the launch of Nick Hornby's latest novel "Slam" and achieved an unprecedented 67% response rate. Blyk created a two-part messaging dialogue whereby positive respondents received a 90 second audio preview of the opening chapter read by Nicholas Hoult, the star of "Skins" the most highly rate youth oriented TV program in the UK. This was a media first for using audio clips sent via mobile to promote a book.
YP: What can Ypulse Mashup attendees expect to learn from your keynote in July?
AO: I will share mind-boggling insights and statistics behind our success in response rates, relevance and interaction. World of mobile is all about communication, openness and listening. And we are continuously improving our services by listening our members. I will to give some answers to how can we get 29% response rates and comments as below (just after we reached 100,000 UK members in April) in the world of commoditized wireless industry.
From a blogger: "My final point to leave you with is basically I am LOVING BLYK! Ok there are elements that annoy me but BLYK is exciting, you are thinking how can a mobile network be exciting? and in all honesty I have no idea but I will leave you with this how many people do you know tell you they LOVE their network? Not many I'd bet, so surely BLYK is doing something right and I would think the other 99,999 members of this service would agree with me!"
- CollegeTube (colleges using YouTube to recruit new students. Plus fans of "Modern Love" in the New York Times, shouldn't miss the college essay winners. And ABC News opening campus bureaus - thanks Derek!) (Washington Post, reg. required) (New York Times, reg. required) (Yahoo! News)
- 'Hurt girls' (Times Sunday Mag cover story on the increased amount of injuries that goes with the increased amount of girls playing physical sports) (New York Times, reg. required)
- The RIAA: Legislate (vs. educate -- trying to pass state laws forcing campuses to crack down on piracy) (News.com)
P.S. I'm speaking in San Jose tomorrow than catching a red eye to Toronto to speak on a couple of panels at an nGenera event -- Casey and Alli will be posting for me through Thursday. Back on Friday!
Just in case you need to be reminded that teens are indeed creating copious amounts of content online as well as pursuing other entrepreneurial ventures, I'm rounding up several links sent to me over the weekend.
First up, the folks at Flip.com (CondeNet) sent me a bunch of links to contests they've been running with various organizations to give away scholarship money. Each promotion has links to the winning Flip book and staff picks. It's fun to see what girls are creating using this tool.
Speaking of contests, the American Film Institute just launched its site for middle and high school students called Screen Nation, "an online video posting-and-sharing community." Check out their first Claim to Fame Challenge.
And while we're talking about creating videos, the folks at Animoto have been trying to get me to mention them for awhile. This user submitted prom video finally did the trick. It made me want to go to prom again or at least wish I had something like this to document it.
On to teen entrepreneurs. Check out these teens at 1308 Productions (Plum TV profile), a south Florida company that "sponsors all ages live music shows show featuring great young bands and bringing teens together for community service involvement." Finally, who better to promote teen events...than teens? Exactly. That's what inspired these Connecticut teens to create their own agency.
Today's Ypulse Job is in sunny San Diego working with our friends at Premise Immersive Marketing. Remember, if you have a youth media or marketing oriented job opening, consider posting it on Ypulse Jobs to reach close to 8K daily Ypulse readers via blog, newsletter and RSS.
Description:
Premise is the immersive marketing partner for brands targeting youth. Premise specializes in building brands through immersive marketing. Premise's diversified on/offline areas of expertise magnify "traditional" marketing by mixing youth and parent brand advocate programs, guerilla campaigns, effective event and entertainment promotions, cultural intelligence and emerging media to create solutions that have a positive impact on youth and drive results.
Position Description:
The Premise Account Director provides innovative promotional b2c online/offline marketing strategies for major consumer brands and hot start up's targeting youth and parents. The Account Director will develop campaign plans and insure that the strategy is fully realized in the implementation delivered to clients. Responsibilities include maintaining knowledge of online marketing best practices, and maintaining a deep understanding of tween, teen and parent marketing. Account Director needs to be able to learn quickly, be able to solve problems independently and be able to view business problems strategically. Individuals must be self-motivated and entrepreneurial and able to thrive in a tight-knit and highly collaborative environment with minimal direct supervision.
Essential Functions:
- Understand each clients business, the business objectives, and their unique needs
- Define/architect strategic and tactical plans that increase the value of client brands/products
- Develop new creative ideas that build the value of youth brands
- Develop (winning) new business development proposals and presentations in response to client needs and/or requests
- Lead/guide the team to ensure effectiveness of implementation
- Clearly identify how proposed solutions will drive brand value and develop methods to measure and optimize program/campaign effectiveness over time
- Data analysis of market information to assist in developing new strategies and optimizing current strategies. Data analysis will include online metrics, offline metrics, market research, and the development of ROI models
- Provide leadership to clients and internal teams in the area of promotional youth marketing
- Serve as a senior level external representative of the agency
- Identify and communicate opportunities to improve agency performance by improving processes and/or adding agency offerings
- Assist with pre-sales solicitation calls and presentation meetings and presentation with prospects and existing clients
- Develop by-line articles and participate in agency brand building activities
Madeline L'Engle's The Joys of Love (previously unpublished and written in 1950 is being reissued by Farrar, Straus and Giroux) (Publisher's Weekly)
BookVideos.tv (Creators TurnHere describe it as a "new multi-publisher book-centric network." At first I thought it was a giant book-movie trailer site... but it's much more.) (GalleyCat)
Wilmington College Children's Literature Conference ("Exploring and Supporting Children's Responses to Literature" attracted over 100 high school and elementary school students. Most of the conference was for college aged education students, but how cool is it they invited the local kids for the first day?) (Wilmington News)
Ranger's Apprentice's author (John Flanagan tells the story of how his book came to be, and how it felt to find out it was going to Hollywood.) (Sydney Morning Herald)
Today's Ypulse Guest Post is books related (yay!) and comes from author Mitali Perkins. Mitali has been a middle and high school teacher and is the author of several books including her most recent, First Daughter: Extreme American Makeover (Dutton), which was followed by a sequel, First Daughter: White House Rules (Dutton). You can read more about Mitali at her website. If you work in youth media or marketing and have an idea for a guest post, just send me an email!
Fusion Stories: Asian Pacific Heritage Month
This year Asian Americans are playing major roles in teen pop culture like never before. Take Ramiele Malubay (American Idol), for example, or Bobby Lee (MADtv), Kal Penn and John Ho (Harold and Kumar), Kristi Yamaguchi and Carrie Ann Inaba (Dancing with the Stars), Kaba Modern and Jabbawockeez (Randy Jackson's America's Best Dance Crews), and even MTV's Tila Tequila.
New Asian American voices have also moved into the mainstream of the book world. Today's titles for teens aren't mainly immigrant stories nor traditional tales retold. They deal with universal themes such as a straight-A teen struggling with a cheating scandal at her school (She's So Money by Cherry Cheva), a promising athlete coping with a snowboarding injury (Girl Overboard by Justina Chen Headley), and a Pakistani-born blogger whose father is about to become President (my own First Daughter: White House Rules).
An Na's The Fold, a novel about a teen considering plastic surgery to change the shape of her eyelids, speaks to all who long to be beautiful, and art-loving teens far and wide will connect with Joyce Lee Wong¹s novel-in-verse Seeing Emily. Paula Yoo, a one-time writer for People magazine and television hits like The West Wing, fuses her pop culture savvy and love of music in Good Enough, a novel about a violinist in rebellion. Her brother, David Yoo, connected with hormone-crazed nerds of every race in his funny novel Girls For Breakfast and is offering his fans the forthcoming Stop Me if You've Heard This One Before.
Founder of Readergirlz, a literacy initiative for teens, award-winning author Justina Chen Headley notes that these books are relished by readers from many different backgrounds. "There are a ton of interesting cultural trends that make it cool to read about Asian American characters," she says. "Take manga and anime, for instance. Or Gwen Stefani's harujuku girls. Mainstream, popular celebrities from actors to athletes are Asian American, and this is filtering into YA and middle grade novels."
Author Lisa Yee remembers the frustration of not finding many books about American girls like her. "When I grew up, there was no fiction featuring contemporary Asian Americans, unless of course the book was about the struggle of immigrants," she says. Thanks to exciting changes in children's book publishing, it's a different world for today's young readers of every cultural heritage, and they have many choices when it comes to novels.
May is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, and ten of us have banded together to offer FUSION STORIES, a menu of delectable next-gen hot-off-the-press novels for middle readers and young adults. FUSION STORIES' authors include Cherry Cheva (Los Angeles, CA), Justina Chen Headley (Seattle, WA), Grace Lin (Boston, MA), An Na (Montpelier, VT), Mitali Perkins (Boston, MA), Janet Wong (Princeton, NJ), Joyce Lee Wong (Los Angeles, CA), Lisa Yee (South Pasadena, CA), David Yoo (Boston, MA), and Paula Yoo (Los Angeles, CA).
FUSION STORIES aims to be a helpful resource for parents, educators, and young readers, so if you know of a novel that (1) is for middle readers or teens, (2) was published in 2007-2008 by a traditional publishing house, (3) features an Asian American protagonist, and (4) is set primarily in contemporary America, please send a .jpg of the cover, a .jpg of the author, one or two reviews, and a brief description of the novel here. FUSION STORIES would be delighted to add titles and authors to the site.
For more information, review copies, or interview requests with any of the authors, please contact press@fusionstories.com.
Hip hop's cool factor just plummeted (after an older college basketball coach nailed the Soulja Boy dance on camera - yikes) (Salon.com, day pass or subscription required)
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