Youth Marketing Studies and Feedback – Closing the information loop

Purpose: To complete the program cycle with a feedback loop, Pop Sustainability provides to our partner organizations marketing studies that utilize our own results and highlight our best practices stemming from the above-mentioned programs including both local and global campaigns

Program: Corporations and non-profits alike have realized the importance of reaching the youth market (Gen X 25-35 years old and Gen Y 18-24 years old) due to their societal influence and their purchasing power. The cultural
influencers that these young adults have access to are more varied than ever before—from the Internet information explosion, to the proliferation of cable television channels and scores of niche publications, to the intercultural mix on urban streets. This diversity translates to a challenge for marketers of all products and services due to extreme market segmentation. Gen Y especially, now college students, has become a moving target. For many non-profit organizations with a minimal marketing and research budget, it can be difficult to understand how to communicate with the youth market audiences. Yet the message of those organizations is critical to youth.

Furthermore, if corporations are not following the developments of the sustainability trend closely, they will miss the opportunity to improve the products and services they produce as demand for such evolution increases. In which case, we may not see such a rapidly marked improvement overall in the marketplace reaction. The risk is that these young adults become frustrated trying to implement a more sustainable lifestyle for themselves and lose interest before the market can respond to their demand.

As Pop Sustainability builds awareness of the issues, and young adults begin to desire more socially and ecologically conscientious products and services, we will begin providing our partner organizations, both corporations and non-profits, with this information. No matter the size and marketing research capacities of the organization—from multinational corporations who target this audience as consumers to smaller non-profit organizations committed to promoting the positive engagement of this audience—the more quality information we have about these audiences the better our ability to reach them.

Most importantly, we reinforce the process of change by forwarding our results regarding these young adults’ (sometimes newly acquired) interests in sustainability and its implications on their lifestyle on a daily basis. As a non-profit organization that has been developing a solid relationship with our constituency, we are naturally positioned to communicate with and for them and to offer solutions for our partner organizations. The feedback loop is critical to the performance of Pop Sustainability’s model for change.

Measurable Objectives: Before, during and after Pop Sustainability's awareness and action campaigns, we collect information related to our target audience and their preferences, affinities and understanding of sustainability. By condensing this information into useful quantitative and qualitative feedback, Pop Sustainability aids hundreds of our partner organizations in better communicating to our audience and meeting the growing demand for more sustainable products and services.

© 2002 POP SUSTAINABILITY