Grown Up Thinking

Thanks to my doting Mom, I’ve been drinking OJ for as long as I can remember. My day simply cannot start without a refreshing glass of tropical deliciousness. My overwhelming enthusiasm might explain my nervous breakdown a few months ago when I could not find my usual carton of Tropicana Pure Premium orange juice (Note to self: panic attacks at Gristedes = not okay). Unbeknownst to me,Tropicana had actually changed their packaging so drastically that I had missed it entirely. Where was that oh so inviting red striped straw and its freshly pierced golden orange? Was I in some kind of supermarket Twilight Zone? Well, it turns out I wasn’t alone. Thanks to countless consumer objections on Facebook and Twitter, the backlash was felt almost instantly. Beginning next month, the newly redesigned Tropicana packaging will be scrapped entirely and the original design will be restored.

The real story here is something Mr Youth has known all along: never underestimate the power of Consumer 2.0. People are extremely passionate about their favorite brands and feel a deep emotional connection that goes beyond mere loyalty. 2.0 technologies essentially act as an intense and immediate focus group, allowing brands to get instant feedback . According to Tropicana North America president Neil Campbell, the quick response came mainly due to the huge outcry of what he described as “our most loyal consumers.” He also noted, “I wouldn’t want to stop innovating as a result of this. At the same time, if consumers are speaking, you have to listen.” This is yet another example of the increasing importance of keeping the consumer-brand dialogue open. The people have spoken. Don’t mess with our orange juice, man.

Social networking site, Twitter, seemed to steal the show during this year’s Super Bowl Sunday. The two major Twitter Super Bowl chat groups received hundreds of Tweets every minute throughout the night. While last year’s Super Bowl ads were blogged about shortly after they aired, this year’s had millions of people instantly display their feedback in 140 characters or less (as is Twitter’s maximum character count) thus providing an accurate and live pulse of the nation (check out this very cool interactive map that displays the most popular words Tweeted during the evening and from where they were sent).

And what better way for a brand to capitalize on this massive audience than having its Super Bowl ad stars Tweet to the masses. Pepsi’s PepSuber, E-Trade’s babies, and H&R Block’s Murray were among the characters who were Tweeting on game day. This type of social networking is proving invaluable for brands because of its impact and because it’s FREE! Because Twitter is an open dialogue it has the ability to connect with consumers more personally than TV spots and having grown over 600% in the last year, it can no longer be ignored by marketers.

The kids of College Humor became an Internet sensation with the launch of CHTV, the series of original viral videos featured on collegehumor.com, a site which traffics over 4 million unique visitors each month.  CHTV’s releases about 5 videos each week in various formats including sketch comedy, film/video parodies and original content including Hardly Working, Jake and Amir and Bleep Bloop.  A personal fan of College Humor for years, I was ecstatic to hear that the series of witty videos were being picked up by MTV to air as the College Humor Show, premiering on February 8th. 

I see this as a huge step for not only for pure entertainment purposes, but also the plethora of smart user generated videos out there.  YouTuber stars like Liam Kyle Sullivan and Jessica Rose (LG15) have risen above their internet popularity to become legitimate spokespeople of this generation.   Major corporations are taking notice of the view counts on YouTube and realizing how influential series like these are in grabbing the attention of this 2.0 world.