Tuned: It’s official — young people at the heart of SA’s future

by Thabang Leshilo (@Thabang_Leshilo) Global business and marketing paradigms have been dramatically shifted by millennials, but have South African brands fully woken up to the reality this heralds for our country? As an observer of youth culture, there is no doubt in my mind that South Africa has entered a new era in which young people will drive our collective futures. Understanding the cultural context of this cohort of youth will be critical to the success of your business and your brands going forward.

With 35-year-olds and younger making up 66% of its total population, SA’s 54m-strong society is a young one. Of these, 18.5 % citizens are between the ages 10–19 and 24% between 15–24 (StatSA 2014, mid-year population estimate).

Sparked change

Despite the challenges that young South Africans face, unemployment and economic inequality to name but two, we have seen in 2015 how the youth movement has challenged authority and sparked change in the country. They’ve championed causes that have real meaning in their lives as, through unified student protests, they’ve fought to decolonise education and battle against fee increases. By constantly giving birth to new ideas and exhibiting the bravery to act upon them, they are driving change and playing a fundamental role in shaping our culture and our future. What cultural role will your company and brands play in their lives? What higher purpose will you serve in 2016 and beyond to connect with these campaigners?

As with other millennials around the world, their values and beliefs are different to those of their parents and grandparents before them. They define success differently and have a different way of approaching life. This is a new generation of South Africans who will force us to see things through a different lens.

Part of this difference means that the old ways of doing things and conservative, hierarchical culture will have no place when this generation supplies the decision makers within business and influencers within society. Importantly, they’ll also disrupt the marketing landscape.

Shaping culture through content

This is already beginning to happen, with the youth shaping our culture on a daily basis through the content they create. They are no longer just absorbing what the west puts out there; they are creating their own stories and narratives, and thus influencing SA culture. For example, there are the films created by young people such as Necktie Youth and Thina Sobabili, films that give us an honest account of our society.

Further, leading creatives such as Lebogang Rasethaba are giving the advertising and marketing world a fresh new face. He directed Mega Data and Mega Bonus, two music video-styled ads from ad agency 1886 for Cell C, featuring Aewon Wolf and Sketchy Bongo from The Wolf Pack. These are brilliant examples of how a brand is collaborating with this generation’s content creators to develop a piece of communication that is authentically in tune with culture, and not based upon old SA stereotypes and ‘culture’.

“I wanted to avoid making another ad where black people are dancing for airtime,” says Ratshebe. “I wanted to rather create something that belongs within a music video context, within that creative and visual language, so the dancing has context. So we had real musicians make a real song that was shot like a music video. If the cast weren’t dancing, what else would they be doing?”

A different approach

To truly connect with this generation will require a different approach, like that taken by Cell C. It means you have to view the world through a different perspective. You have to constantly be engaging with what’s happening on the ground, be it mainstream, emerging or niche.

This is not just about a reflection upon youth culture or targeting the youth; it’s about understanding where culture is going and how it is influencing the SA market. It means you cannot communicate in the same way that you have for the last 20 years about washing powder, baked beans or rice. You’ve got to ‘get with the times’. This is it — this is the new generation of SA consumers.

So how will you, as a business, incorporate this shift? How will you ensure that the messages you put out there reflect society today? Do you have the right voices and people in your business to help you bring this across authentically, and are you giving them the platform to bring about change in order for your brands to succeed?

Need to acknowledge

As we build brands into the future, from the advertising that we create to the products that we design, we need to acknowledge that this is the time and space that we are operating in today. The culture of post-apartheid SA is unapologetically young, pulsating, expressive, multicoloured, culturally integrated, conscious, collaborative, always striving for a meaningful existence and always proudly African.

 

Thabang Leshilo (@Thabang_Leshilo) is a project manager at strategic marketing consultancy Added Value. As a ‘next-generation’ marketer with fresh and curious eyes looking into the industry, she has a keen interest for brands that are culturally in tune with and able to integrate and immerse themselves into the everyday realities of the consumer. She contributes the monthly “Tuned” column, sharing marketing insight and analysis, to MarkLives.

 

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