To Thine Own Self Be True

Our group has been on a “marketing” kick lately. Not only have we been talking about it in meetings (see the last couple of entries) but we've also used those meeting's discussions to inform some theories we have about how trends begin among youth and children. In fact, we're smack dab in the middle of conducting our own little experiment with starting a trend. But more on that later!

Last week we passed out paper and pen and asked our youth to use the following questions to interview the person sitting beside them, then report back to the large group with what they found out about their partner.

1. Name a tv commercial or ad which made you want to buy (or do) what it was selling.

2. Name a person who does something or has something (or doesn't do or have something) who made you want what s/he does or has.

3. What sorts of people influence you most?

Across the board, our youth were heavily influenced by advertising, yet said that the people who influenced them the most were not celebrities but their peers who were the most authentic, confident, and believably unique. So, we followed up with these questions:

1. You have an image: how you feel about yourself and an idea of what people think about you. Where does this come from? Why and how does it change?

2. As people get older, they often say they don't care what people think about them as much anymore. Is that a good thing or a bad thing in your opinion?

3. Why is it so hard to know yourself and then stay true to who you are?

We ended by re-telling the famous story of the disastrous 1984 Coca-Cola formula change, when millions were spent developing and marketing a new "sweeter" version of Coke’s classic recipe. Coke wanted to appeal to perceived changes in people’s tastes and convert its primary competitor, Pepsi's, following. But it failed miserably. New Coke may have upheld Coca-Cola’s promise of refreshment and enjoyment, but it didn’t connect with Coke’s longtime customers or help Coke steal share from Pepsi. Nor were they successful in attracting new customers. If anything, the change to its product detracted from the reputation that Coca-Cola spent so many years establishing. In fact, the only thing the company succeeded in doing was alienating its longtime customers. What was inside the can with the familiar logo wasn’t what loyalists had come to expect and trust.

In conclusion, we asked each youth to reflect in silence on how they could balance who they are with what people want them to be, and then to offer aloud to the group one piece of advice they had for others struggling with that tension.