Do Brands Need to Push the Youth of Today?

Do brands need to push the youth of today?

It is interesting to take a look at the recent advertising efforts of a couple of big brands with a strong youth focus; Wrangler and Lucozade from the UK.

Their efforts are rally cries to their audience to Wear with Abandon in the case of Wrangler or to Spark Something with Lucozade.

Both brands seem to be operating from the strategic playbook of youth advertising that has been around for decades and is all about encouraging youngsters to live freely or courageously. Some of the context and the music might have changed, but the core premise is the same.

I do not have the answer, but I really wonder if this is the most insightful approach in 2019?

Should brands be telling young people what to do, don’t they already know?

Would brands be better served by providing real platforms that encourage and allow their audiences to be creative or courageous, rather than telling them?

Surely, there is something very different about the youth of today- in their makeup, attitudes, and values that can be expressed?

As I mentioned earlier, I do not have the answers to these questions, but find it surprising that on one hand we have researchers and academics reminding us that the new generations are very different from the past, yet these brands are undertaking approaches that seem very similar to past efforts. 

This leads me to the final area of questioning around the depth of inquiry in the account planning process- are planners being allowed and encouraged to go deep and unearth the surprising, or are time and bandwidth so constrained that they cannot get there?