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Art of the Subtle Sell

Leah Chapple-Stingley on guerilla marketing.

Listen to this Commentary!

By Leah Chapple-Stingley

Trendspotters and cool-hunters are the latest casualties of corporate downsizing. But that doesn’t mean companies are running out of crafty ways to target teens. The line between advertising and everyday life is quickly evaporating. And while that may be news to adults, many of today’s young people are used to subtle marketing messages cropping up everywhere in their world. Youth Radio’s Leah Chapple-Stingley brings us the story.

Vintage Ad Jingle: It’s Slinky. It’s Slinky. For fun, it’s a wonderful toy. It’s Slinky, it’s Slinky, it’s fun for a girl and a boy.

This classic slinky ad was way before my time, but marketing expert Rob Douglas says too many companies today still use old-school strategies like this one to appeal to kids.

Rob Douglas: Marketers think that mom still buys everything for them. And that “Let me take my product and market it to mom, because this will make mom happy, and this will make kids love moms more for buying this product.”

Rob says marketers who know anything about teenagers have to realize, appealing to mom is simply NOT the way to go. He’s the youth expert at New York’s Brand Buzz, where marketing types try to get the buzz going on random stuff, from Dr. Pepper to Lady Speed Stick.

Let’s say you’re watching MTV’s hit show, Total Request Live. As the camera pans the audience, a few carefully positioned people scattered in the crowd hold up signs that spell out the slogan, “Make 7 Up Yours.” It looks spontaneous, but of course, it’s not… and that’s guerrilla marketing. But don’t be fooled by the radical title. The approach is sponsored by a subdivision of one of the most powerful ad agencies in the country. Brand Buzz has clients and accounts like everybody else. The difference is, their so-called subtle marketing tactics are designed to appeal to even the most cynical teenagers.

Rob Douglas: These kids have the BS meter up. How do you break through that?

Well… if you’re Rob, you don’t let a silly thing like age stand in your way. This guy’s in his 30s. He may wear a suit for important client meetings on Madison Avenue. But at least two or three times a week, Rob’s out on the town, kicking it with the young people.

Rob Douglas: How do I do it? It’s shopping the same stores they are, listening to the same music they are, surfing the same websites they are, seeing the movies. It’s really role playing in its truest, purest form.

It’s not that Rob lies about his age. But if you spot him at a rap concert, you’d probably think he’s just another college kid in baggy jeans. To do this kind of marketing research, Rob needs an awesome fashion radar, tuned to the subtleties of what he calls “teen tribes.” But to really sell his brands, sometimes he gets help from the same kids he targets. That’s where the street team comes in.

Rich Osborne: Street promotions is all about not getting caught putting the stuff up.

By day, Rich Osborne is an artist in his late 20s. By night, he’s a street team leader in New York City. Rich is hired by firms like Brand Buzz to pack a bunch of teenagers into cars after dark. They go out and cover telephone poles with posters and stickers for the latest product. Thanks to street teams, the image on the sidewalk you might mistake for another graffiti tag is just as likely to be an ad for toothpaste. And Rich pays kids, in t-shirts, free samples, or maybe 10 or 20 bucks, to spread corporate logos throughout the city.

Osborne: Because kids are fast! They can run fast! Old guys can’t move too fast. Naw, I’m kidding. Kids know where to go….

And they know how to avoid the cops, who don’t always see the difference between street promotions and vandalism. Sure, Rich pays 75 dollar fines here and there when his kids get caught red-handed. But if the brand takes off, he says it’s worth it. Guerrilla marketers admit it can be hard to measure the effect of their underground strategies. But with US teens spending nearly 104 bucks per week last year, I’m thinking my world is only going to get more over-run by marketers. And we’ll just have to keep finding new ways to out-smart them.

In Berkeley, I’m Leah Chapple Stingley for Marketplace.

HOST BACK ANNOUNCE: “The Subtle Sell” is part of a special series Young Bucks, produced by Youth Radio.