Students Control 24 Billion Shilling Back To School Market!

A landmark research study on the economics of back to school shopping has unveiled the existence of a massive Kshs 24billion fast moving consumer goods economy. The first of a kind research study by youth research powerhouse Youth Dynamix Kenya has confirmed that nationally, Back To School shopping is worth close to Kshs 24 billion annually.

This economy, the study notes still has room for growth given that school administrators are blocking a further Kshs 5.7 billion worth of shopping per term featuring lifestyle products.
Interestingly, the back to school period covers less than one and a half weeks, features a population of approximately 1.23 million youth, which is 3.6% of Kenya’s total population, yet contributes staggering economic revenues.
The syndicated study dubbed the Youth Dynamix Back2School Shopping Trax, unveiled November 20th revealed that an average of KShs 8 Billion is spent each term on over 120 product categories by parents sending their children back to school. As expected, students in secondary and primary boarding schools spend an average of KShs 18.3 billion annually, while day scholars contribute KShs 5.7 billion annually to the back to school spend. Interestingly, students interviewed in the course of the study confirmed that a loaf of bread is the most ‘valued & expensive’ item on their shopping lists. For this item, a total of KShs 1.2 billion is used per term to purchase it!
As an emerging trend, students are also increasingly purchasing modern lifestyle products such as water purifier, toothpicks, wet wipes and cotton buds. The study confirmed that the combined worth of the three products stands at close to Kshs 4.8 million per term. For example, 1.5%, or 18,500 students will find it prudent to carry toothpicks to school!
While presenting the findings, Youth Dynamix Kenya Strategy and Research Manager Sylvester

Manyara further disclosed that aside from FMCG, players in the transport and banking sectors are also enjoying a slice of the pie.
Manyara who spoke during a breakfast meeting featuring local sales & brand managers and presided over by Nakumatt Holdings Operations Director Mr. Thiagarajan Ramamurthy, further disclosed that supermarkets are the dominant trade avenues for back to school shopping business enjoying more than 78% of the cake.
“Seventy eight percent of urban students shop for most of their products from supermarkets, while a further 51% will supplement with products from shops and 30% from kiosks,” Manyara disclosed.
And added: “for all students, a supermarket visit is a near must do activity even for students in rural areas given that although 58% of rural students will shop for most of their products in local shops, 57% will still find time to pick up some of the stuff from supermarkets on their way to school.”
While lauding the research study as a worthy information package, Nakumatt boss Ramamurthy challenged executives in the FMCG sector to keep up with the times by adding value to their product offering during such seasonal sales season such as back to school periods.
Marketers, he noted, must strive to raise up to the occasion by embracing flexible offers and packaging elements to attract such a key market.
“This study clearly shows that there’s a huge market comprising of students that has been previously ignored,” Ramamurthy noted. Specific to Nakumatt, Ramamurthy pledged to unveil enticing offers for back to school shopping with interested supplier to further add value to the shopping season. Other highlights in the study confirm that on a gender basis, females are the high spenders accounting for more than 56% of the overall high school students’ expenditure spending more than Kshs 13.4 billion. And while a loaf of bread is the most valuable product, a bar soap is the most ‘crucial’ item in the shopping basket, purchased by 78% of the students. tudents interviewed in the study confirmed that a bar Soap is the most multi-purpose product in the shopping basket, substituting close to 6 other products. “It is used for bathing, laundry, cleaning utensils and applied as a ‘lotion’, or a ‘jelly’ after taking a shower,” Manyara explained.

The high school market, Manyara pointed out has a population of approximately 1.23 million youth, which is 3.6% of Kenya’s total population.

Coca-Cola Teaches Teens About AIDS

Coca-Cola, the largest multinational company on the African continent, has long offered HIV/AIDS education and treatment to its workers. But in recent years, it has put its corporate clout behind attempts to stem the tide of HIV infections among the next generation of workers.
According to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, nearly 25 million of the 40 million people living with HIV are in sub-Saharan Africa....

That is why, in recent months, Coca-Cola has tried to work on the problem by partnering with nonprofit groups that focus on youth, to help the next generation talk openly about sexual and reproductive health.
The Coca-Cola Africa Foundation, with a donation of nearly $3 million, formed a three-year partnership with Dance4Life. The group reaches young people in nine countries -- South Africa, Egypt, Nigeria, Tanzania, Kenya, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Uganda and Sierra Leone -- with health messages delivered via the performing arts.
Young participants in Dance4Life school programs learn sexual-reproductive health lessons before presenting them to peers in dramatic, dance or musical performances.

Why MTV Is Becoming Irrelevant

Once essential, MTV no longer calls the cultural tune. At least in the western world, that is. Now, most media observers are asking, is MTV headed for the "What Ever Happened To?" list, alongside the kids from "Diff'rent Strokes" and “Kids Incorporated”? Once the Goliath of pop music and youth marketing, the MTV has become an outlet for booty-driven reality TV.

In 2007, some 26 years after MTV defined a generation , all MTV has to say for itself is "My Super Sweet 16."

The mighty MTV has stumbled, and it's twisting around like empty bubbles going down the drain. There was a time in the 1980s and '90s when the channel had the ballast to send an act to the top of the Billboard charts, but "Idols" is the new boss. There was a time when the word "clip" meant an MTV video with artistic and commercial punch, but now the word refers to the virals that ricochet through YouTube. And there was a time when a band had no future without MTV exposure, but now a MySpace page or a position on iTunes is more essential. When it comes to the buzz biz, MTV is out of the loop.

Even MTV's annual MTV Video Music Awards, once the jewel in the network's crown, have lost their sheen. In 2002, the event drew some 12 million viewers; last September, the audience hit a low of 5.77 million. And MTV's remnant music show "TRL" has tumbled from a peak daily viewership of 782,000 in 1999 to an average of 375,000. The "TRL" situation is dire enough that MTV is about to revamp it and rename it "YouRL," in a belated nod to the digital age.

From the start, of course, the relevance of MTV exceeded its ratings. MTV has been most powerful as a harbinger of attitude and innovation, making "next" into a present tense phenomenon. But the audience decline of the VMAs and "TRL" is a symptom of a more generalized impotence. Pop and its spectacles are playing at a computer near you, as well as on most of the countless music-awards shows that air on TV year - round. MTV seems to have grown too passive, or too smug, to even reckon with those obvious obstacles.

The knife-twist in the back of MTV is that the network helped to build what is overshadowing it. The digital folk-art of viral video, where imagery from diverse sources is mashed up, owes plenty to the post-modern originality and humour of MTV video. The graphic environments of entertainment websites, too, recall music videos and those flashy early MTV station-identification interstitials. And, most importantly, the youth mindset that MTV's fast-editing wit pioneered -- impatient, eager to "go to," hungry to multitask -- has aided and abetted the nimble way young people use their computers for music- and TV-related content.

The fact that Viacom has a billion-dollar lawsuit pending against Google for using Viacom properties on YouTube, and the fact that it let News Corp. buy MySpace in 2005, only reinforce MTV's lagging reputation. Shouldn't MTV be out in front, rather than the Jan to YouTube's Marcia? MTV has licensed its content to BitTorrent, and its content will air on Viacom's highly anticipated Joost site, due later this year; it has created an iTunes-like download service called Urge; and it recently gave its own website a clarifying makeover. But it has nonetheless missed the big boat that it helped to set sail. And MTV is still figuring out how to pursue the social networking revolution of MySpace and Facebook, despite the fact that it seemed to own the MySpace/Facebook generation audience beforehand.

But on a deeper and more critical level, the real problem dogging MTV isn't the way it provides content. The real problem is the content. Even if MTV came up to speed, even if it found a way to matter in today's user-generated culture, there still isn't much there. The MTV line up is too much of nothing right now, especially when compared to other members of the Viacom cable family. Comedy Central, for instance, has stayed vital with "South Park," "The Daily Show," and "The Colbert Report," and VH1 has kept its name alive with tiresome, self-parodic, but remarkably highly rated "celebreality" programming.

MTV just doesn't have the two or three series it needs to distinguish its brand and use as tent poles. The reality shows, including "Laguna Beach," "Living Lahaina," "The Hills," and "Scarred," lose their novelty quickly, as they redundantly rely on buff bodies, rigged romance, and post-"Jackass" stunts. They all blur together ; they share the same editing-with-soundtrack style that originated on "The Real World" in 1992 and that was long ago appropriated by other networks for their own reality shows. The petty MTV reality series reveal a channel in a creative rut, still hoping to expand on the early '00s hits "The Osbournes," "Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica," and "Jackass."

Where is the new talent, where are the Mike Judges and Spike Jonzes, or even the new big shots like Johnny Knoxville? Why isn't MTV snagging young Stephen Colberts? Could MTV upend and reinvent itself by subverting "You" culture and reality TV, in the way "Beavis and Butt- Head" undermined music videos? Or maybe MTV has buried itself already, and producers would rather take their projects elsewhere than watch them get sucked into MTV reality quicksand.

Naturally, MTV has its share of conscience-relieving material , some of which is well done. Ultimately, a channel like MTV defines itself with its series programming, but MTV nonetheless deserves a nod for trying to pitch public affairs to younger viewers. Its news and documentary coverage related to soldiers and the war in Iraq, and its consistent push to make its viewers more environmentally aware, have been admirable. But without a new creative direction, MTV will be delivering its good works to ever fewer eyes.

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These is an excerpt taken from an article written by Matthew Gilbert, Boston Globe

Why Apple Is The Pick of the Crop

Companies would do well to draw branding and marketing lessons from the creator of the iPod and the iPhone. Here's a look at what Apple does right

Like many of my peers, who went to primary school in the 1980’s, my first encounter with computers was after high school. That said, my first encounter with the Apple Macintosh was when I joined the advertising industry. Back then, Apple had yet to make a big impact on many teens' lives outside the field of ‘Graphic Design’.

Then came the 2001 debut of the iPod and the dawn of current generation’s love affair with Apple. Since I began youth marketing in 2001 (this year is purely coincidental with the launch of the iPOD), I have read numerous studies that list teens' favourite brands. Apple is inevitably at the top of every brand list. In fact, a survey carried out recently on TheInsyder.Com said teens put the iPOD higher than a car on a list of what they wanted most!

"Unique Market Niche"
But widespread teen affection for the iPod didn't happen overnight. Like most trends among youth, it began almost unnoticed and it spread until it became a cultural phenomenon. "There were teenagers who were more excited about the founder of Apple, Steve Jobs, than 50 Cent," says Sylvester Manyara, Research Manager of Youth Dynamix. "They had a passion for the company—and people don't tend to worship businesses and business leaders. Apple had a unique market niche. It produced a product that met their basic need – entertainment, and complimented part of their lifestyle – fashion & technology."
The numbers prove Manyara's point. Research by Youth Dynamix found that the iPOD emerged as the brand that is "absolutely essential to teens." The research found that the product teens talk to each other about most is the iPOD. A survey found that 58% of urban high school students own a portable media player (iPOD, MP3/4 etc), and that of those students, 15% own an iPOD. From an aspiration level, 92% wish they could own one type or another of the iPOD portable player. The aspiration to own an electronic media player is not an exclusive psychographic profile for AB’s only, as would be expected. Rather, it cuts across all the socio-economic groupings, AB, C1, C2 and D’s.

Lessons To Learn
In a matter of years, Apple has gone from the maker of computers graphic designers’ use, to the designer of computers & technology products that make you cool and fashionable. What lessons can marketers learn from Apple’s unbelievable story?

1. Meet a Real Need: Music has always been teens' first love. It's the soundtrack to their lives. Back in the day, we used to agonize over the famous mix tapes created by DJ ‘So and So’ from F2 and had so much difficulty sourcing them. Almost overnight, the iPod created the digital equivalent of the mix tape. Instead of having to buy an entire overpriced tape, teens could now create portable playlists of their favourite songs. And while most were downloaded illegally, Apple also provided a way for teens with guilty consciences or extra-vigilant parents to buy them legally. Teens became the content creators—and Apple gave them the tools to be creative.

2. Design Matters. Your product should not only meet a need, but to attract teen loyalty, it needs to have good design. You can also extend that design look and feel into your marketing or branding. Think about how Apple ads use the white ear-buds and iPod in contrast with the black silhouette. They also integrate their design sensibility into their outlets and stores.

3. Let Fans and Media Do Your Marketing. Whenever Apple begins to get lots of media attention, it scales back on marketing. Also, Apple never overloads ads with information. They keep marketing simple, letting the press and fans fill in the gaps. And organic word of mouth is always the best marketing. Teens are the most social of social creatures and value friends' opinions above any traditional advertising. Think ‘Bamboocha’ – what does it mean? Fill in the gaps…

4. You Don't Have to be for Teens to Reach Teens. In some ways, this is the biggest lesson brands can learn from Apple. Their products are for everyone. Apple's ads are not age-specific; the silhouettes show all different kinds of people. The spots also feature varied genres of music, even as they resonate with a teen audience. It's the brand values of creativity, diversity, and individuality, combined with a line of well-designed products that deliver, that has converted this generation of teenagers into Mac addicts.
Locally, we have seen various brands who have noted the impact of the youth – they are numerous. Nokia, Coca-Cola and MTV’s partnership in the recent search for a VJ in East Africa, Motorola are doing this with music theme and using local musicians to endorse the product. Even soap manufacturer Protex is getting in on the act and using Kenyan entertainment celebrities to endorse the brand.
Eventually, even if you can't create your own cult of Mac, you can learn a thing or two from Apple on how to reach the iPod generation. The sooner you do this, the better it is for your brand because today’s youth are tomorrow’s (and today’s) consumers.

This feature is an excerpt taken from the December 2007 edition of Marketing Africa. It was written and borrowed with permission from Marketing Africa, and the writer, Ngaruiya Githegi.

Ngaruiya Githegi (ngaruiya@theinsyder.com) is the Managing Director of Teenwise Media Limited, the publisher of Kenya’s leading youth and entertainment magazine, The Insyder (www.theinsyder.com). He is also a leading advocate of the use of youth-focused consumer insights and competitive intelligence as a basis for brand strategy, advertising, and new product design. Ngaruiya is also a director of research, marketing and brand strategy agency, Youth Dynamix.