Digital Media News

To sell to any audience, you have to understand them. You need to discover how they think, act and what motivates their purchase decisions – and this is especially true of the Millennial Generation, also known as “Generation Y”, who represent the consumer market of the future.

This generation, (born between 1980 and the early 2000’s), has grown up in a technological world. Unlike previous generations, they have lived their whole lives knowing what television, computers, and telephones are. They have witnessed the rise of the Internet and are used to having an immediate, ever-present source of information at their fingertips. They are also founders of the revolutionary social media movement.

This tech-savvy, media-connected generation is unique. They engage with brands far more extensively, personally, and emotionally than any generation before, and marketers require a unique approach to reach them.

YouTube released its first Brand Channel Leader board earlier this year, featuring channels that have had the most success attracting repeat viewership, shares, and engaged fan bases. But how well are brands actually doing on the video-sharing platform?

According to Touchstorm’s Video Index, only 74 of the top 5,000 channels on YouTube belong to brands. This isa mind-blowing statistic, given the video platform’s millions of daily users and the size of marketing budgets for international brands. These 74 brandsare YouTube innovators, who enjoy one new view every two seconds, with their content being liked and shared by legions of loyal fans.

Major sporting events such as the World Cup, Wimbledon and the Commonwealth Games always dominate the media, and each throws up a wealth of sponsorship opportunities for brands across the world. Coca-Cola, Adidas, McDonalds and Sony are just a few of the companies that have benefited from the global exposure that the partnerships have bought.

With all the excitement over, we thought we’d take a look at how some of the key sponsors used experiential marketing activations toelevate their brands.

1. Virgin Media: Commonwealth Games

Virgin Media used its partnership with Usain Bolt to launch its interactive ‘RaceBolt’ activation at the Commonwealth Games. Participantswere given the opportunity to race against the world’s fastest man over 30 meters, on a professional athletics track. Usain was on hand in virtual form, on a 40m x 3m interactive LED screen.