Meet the Professionals

My mum has always grinded me to be a professional since I was young. And that professionals are either: doctors, lawyers, engineers or accountants.

So when I first looked at the poster, I thought to myself 'Hey! They got that wrong. I'm no Professional'.

But if thats what they are calling me, I'm not going to complain.

IACT.

I've always had a good impression of this education institution. One of the reasons is because I've known quite a few outstanding indivuals who were graduates from there.

Secondly, would be the name itself. During my first encounter with the brand of the institution, I somehow read it as I ACT - and it sounds like a very strong action statement. I'm just personally against organizations/people who keeps talking without any action taken (also known as NATO: No Action Talk Only).

Anyway, back to the industry. The youth industry is considerably one of the most lucrative ones -alongside the female targeted industry.

Why, you ask?

High disposable income with low commitments (Boys: Unless you've got a girlfriend - still, you'll be disposing it).

Check out http://www.asiaparttime.com/ and look at the number of part time jobs available for youths daily.

A regular 20 year old youth with side income from weekend odd jobs such as sales promoter, roadshow crew and store assistant can cash in anything from RM500 - RM2000 per month.

As for the girls who involve themselves into 'higher' end jobs such as cigarette/alcohol sales promoters and car show models - I've known a few who rakes in a 5 figure pay cheque monthly.

For those who don't work, they're supplemented by allowance money from parents.

Of course some may argue that these are just short term gains - but as the saying goes 'easy come, easy go' still has some truth beneath it all.

Relating back on the relationship of Advertising and Youths.

Getting a message across to youths is never an easy task.

Here's why:

1. They are not homogeneous. (For those who don't know the meaning, go wiki it. And NO, its got no relations to being homophobic.)

2. They are age sensitive. (Age groups: 18-21 years and 22-25 years have extreme differences. I'm sure many would agree hands down to that.)

3. They are critical. (I'd like to see them as choosy instead)

4. By the time you think you understand them, they've moved on to something else. (Yes, BN. Now you know. For those aspiring MPs - surf on to http://www.youthsays.com/ to check out the voices of our future leaders)

5. They don't pick up print media. Even if they do, they hardly read.

6. They rarely watch TV. Even if they do, they channel-hop during advertisements.

Bearing all the above in mind - I'll be giving more of my two cents at the Open Day, 2 weeks from now, hopefully revealing some industry magic. =)

As for now, I'll just drop one glaring tip for youth advertisers: you can never get it wrong with the all-time less-likely-to-fail relevant youth campaign revolving around the element of MUSIC.