I saw this excellent post by Doug Akin in MediaPost’s Engage: Teens and wanted to share it.

Success In The Eyes Of Teens Today

I’m intrigued by how media are transforming today’s teens to be tomorrow’s innovators and revolutionaries. What will fuel them to do great things as they enter adulthood? How will brands, causes and celebrities inspire their dreams and help make them reality?
But first, let’s take a quick flash back to a decade ago. Jackass gave hope to class clowns across the country and Napster founder Sean Fanning was giving the record industry the proverbial middle finger. It was cool to be a badass. Today, it has become cool to do good.

How today’s teens are different:

They will defy conformity and reshape the vision of success and career
They will rethink how companies are built and how they profit
They believe they can change the world (and ultimately will)
Their idea of success isn’t a 9-5 with a six-figure salary
A great pop culture nugget that shows just how much teens have transformed: “The Buried Life,” an MTV show following the epic cross-country journey of four friends as they accomplish 100 dreams before they die. From paying off their parents’ mortgage to playing ball with President Obama, their adventures undoubtedly provide a new perspective on what it means to achieve.

What am I getting at here? Teens see the real world through a different lens. The cast members of “The Buried Life” believe they can do anything, from going into space to delivering a baby. What’s more, they’re actually giving back to communities. From the small (giving a random person $100) to the huge (buying computers for an L.A. school), they tie every crazy dream they accomplish back to helping total strangers.

Assuming they stay on course (and remain entertaining), these guys will become role models for teens and reshape how they view success. For many of today’s teens, becoming a millionaire will become less important over the years. Money is still important, but today’s teens will see role models like Blake from Toms Shoes and Charity Water founder Scott Harrison achieve success through cause and community. They will also be inspired by how entrepreneurs are using their voices and influence to spotlight key causes.

Recently, Twitter co-founders Ev & Biz leveraged their rock-star social-media status to start up a new wine venture, Fledgling, designed to fund literacy programs. Don’t get me wrong. I’m sure there are millions of teens who aspire to be the next Mark Zuckerberg, but the next kid to step out and become an Internet legend/ accidental billionaire will probably build something with a strong give-back component.

I’m excited to think of how far today’s teens will take us in 10 years. I imagine a world where they will create products with a purpose. Imagine creating a granola brand and using profits to end a war in Africa, or building the next Facebook platform to donate 20% of their advertising revenue to crisis relief? Now that’s a dream to cross off my own bucket list.

These phrases stand out to me in particular and get me excited about the potential of cause marketing with the teen segment: “it has become cool to do good;” “tie every crazy dream…to helping total strangers,” “products with a purpose,” and “reshape how they view success.”

What brands are owning these sentiments? American Express has taken the lead on aligning themselves with the entrepreneurs and SMBs leading our economic recovery. Who’s going to empower and align with the Do Good Youth segment?  Better yet, how can we harness the work we do (or our clients do) to make a greater social impact?

I’ve already got an idea for one of my clients…

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This is Ashley Mays from CrossFit Memphis.

I don’t know Ashley or her story but I love this image.  It is ready to be turned into a great piece of marketing collateral for the CrossFit brand.

For those of you not familiar with CrossFit, this is a fitness company that has become one of the hottest fitness trends in the world.  It combines a variety of disciplines including Olympic weightlifting, gymnastics and endurance training.  It’s hard to describe, but it’s results are indisputable.  Can you tell that I am a devotee?

The challenge CrossFit encounters as it grows as a movement is the perception that it is so hardcore that it’s only for elite athletes.  The truth, however, is that anyone can develop into an athlete and CrossFit is an effective way to coax out that inner warrior.  Thus, my love for this image.  The woman in her wedding dress doing pull-ups.  This tells the story that “everyone is an athlete if they want to be.”

CrossFit most likely doesn’t need too much help in terms of marketing communications right now. Their empire seems to be growing on word-of-mouth.  Which is just fine since there is no channel more effective than that.

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“The new products we are planning to release this year are very strong, starting this week with a major new product that we’re really excited about.”

That’s what Steve Jobs said today when Apple revealed their Q4 financials.

I can’t help it. I can barely control my excitement over Apple’s new products announcement on Wednesday. And, though I have a meeting scheduled up in LA to begin at the exact same time as the announcement, I will surely be streaming it to some device hidden in my jacket pocket.

Here’s why I am so excited:

Apple is supposedly going to unveil a tablet-like device (iPad, iSlate, iWhatever) and this device is going to get us that much closer to the advertising holy grail: completely personalized advertisements.  If this tablet does what the speculators think it will do, then it’s a conduit for

games,

email,

magazines,

journals,

books,

textbooks,

newspapers,

tv,

movies,

apps

and the web.

It will be a direct link from Apple to our Attention.   Just think about it: every form of media will be deliverable to us in one form factor.  And if Apple knows what we prefer, when we prefer it and maybe even why we prefer it, their advertising partners can serve us up singularly targeted messaging.  This is a game-changer for advertisers, content providers ( no more boohooing, editors!) and business.  Direct mail will change (your “mailbox” will be with you wherever you are and it will be able to serve up interactive advertising).  Magazines will change (they will no longer sell limited ad space, but limitless and targeted advertising space). Even retail sales will change (welcome to the digital catalog and your ability to see products in context, to interact with them, to find out more and to watch video content about the products and brands).

Apple’s biggest challenge may be making this so it isn’t scary to us consumers when we realize what a Pandora’s box this really is.  I hope they’ve given this a great deal of thought and are ready to answer the privacy and ethical issues that will arise.  Because this is going to be a really incredible leap for personal technology.

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AdAge recently ran a great article on the hit webisode series Easy to Assemble, a successful example of branded content for Ikea. [here's a preview]

The series, created by actress Illeana Douglas, demonstrates how film and marketing can work hand-in-hand to create real value as both entertainment and advertisement.  Even the title gives me a laugh when I consider all of the not-so-easy moments I’ve had trying to decipher Ikea’s pictogram assembly instructions.  It looks like Ikea has a good sense of humor about itself and understand its audience. Which, after all, is a defining trait of strong branded content: the ability of the brand to demonstrate that “we understand and respect how you, the consumer, perceive us and value us.”

This should also be a clarion call to independent filmmakers everywhere to take all of those great ideas they’ve been mulling over for years.  You don’t have to wait for the studios to discover you anymore.  You should be chasing down the brands with whom your project is simpatico.

[note: to find out why this article is titled the way it is, you'll have to watch the show!]

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I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I am looking forward to a series of ads commissioned by our federal government.  Someone had the very bright idea to hire Christopher Guest to create  public service announcements preparing us for the 2010 Census.

The campaign, “A Snapshot of America,” will feature staples of Guest’s films like “Best in Show” and “Waiting for Guffman,” including Jennifer Coolidge and Ed Begley Jr.  I’m expecting these ads, which are implicitly meant to inform and influence the U.S. population to comply with the Census Bureau, to be entertaining. Which, after all, may very well be the best way to get anybody to do anything.

For more on the campaign, check out this AdAge article.

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