YouthAsia

I have an issue with young Malaysians. Considering I contribute monthly articles to Marketing magazine about Malaysian youth marketing, I probably have many ‘issues’ with young Malaysians.

But this is a different sort of issue. The kind of issue you would care about if your business relies on marketing to young Malaysians each and every day. Recently, we’ve expanded our operations in a big way, hiring people in the process. The thought arises: How do I hire and train young Malaysians to be top performers at work? How do I turn youths into youth marketing experts?

We’re looking at the next-generation of marketers here. Is it just me, or is there something they need now more than ever?

THE SEARCH FOR TOP MARKETING TALENT

It’s 7pm, and I am in the ‘boom-room’ sofa with my eyes closed, soaking in the sounds of the rain I love so much. I am waiting for shortlisted candidate number 57 to come in. All this is happening after 2 weeks of interviewing and countless CVs.

I hear a knock on the door.

Silently, I pull together strands of optimism from the strings of disappointing interviews I had today. Then, she walked in…

Maybe you’ve been here before. You visualize this top-notch candidate to groom and let bloom. But you’re tired, because you’ve been looking hard. Real hard. And you haven’t found ‘the one’.

Or maybe you’re here with me now. In a time where (I hear) people get retrenched and companies freeze hiring. A time where we would assume there are plenty of young Malaysian talents wading in the talent pool, right?

YOU GOT A BRIGHT FUTURE, KIDDO.

Right. There are plenty of people looking for jobs. But 99.9% of them are missing the vital ingredient. Most of them lack the ONE THING needed for them to evolve and outperform – especially in the ever-changing face of youth marketing.

The girl who is about to be interviewed – does she have it?

Don’t get me wrong. You can get good people. The smarts? They have it. The experience? They can get it. The skills. They can learn it. They got plenty going on for them – IF – and only if they have this ONE THING – the ONE THING which makes the world go around.

And that, my friends, is care.

Care – Do these kids care? What do they care about? Do they care about what they are doing in their job, and how it contributes to the world? Do they care if the campaign gets carried out proper?

Care – It’s another kinky little four letter word, like, um, ‘Love’. But it is potent. The rest of this article will clarify how CARE affects everything we know about marketing, especially how we get ‘jaded’ youth audience to care about your product…

Do we care enough to know?

I’M DOING IT FOR YOU, HONEY, HONEST!

It starts with one person.

If the one person on the team doesn’t care about much, it will bleed into the workflow, the client communications, the campaign, the delivery of the product, all the way into the hands of the potential customers. I mean, if you don’t care, who will?

As shortlisted candidate #57 closes the door behind her, I wonder if she is generally a caring person. This girl needs to care, if she hopes to work here. Caring has to start inside the individual, the people who do ‘the work’. Here’s why:

• People who care about themselves will challenge themselves to grow. The care about advancing in their careers.
• People who care about their work, will make sure its done well. They’ll pay attention to the details which matter.
• People who care about other people’s situations, will respect deadlines, revert fast, and go the extra mile to deliver.
• People who care make excellent team players, because they are more likely to help, and less likely to offend.

People underestimate this, but caring is infectious. All of a sudden, a project is fun, because the team cares about the journey and the outcome.

Sure, it’s easy to see how hiring someone who cares is a good idea for client service, meticulous coordination, and dependable execution. But get this: People who care about the right things, make excellent marketers, too.

WHEN MARKETERS BEGIN TO CARE

Beware! Where marketers place their care may just give you crazy results… or crappy results.

A marketer who cares for the ‘truth’, will dig for the ‘truth’.

They want to know why. The ‘why’ makes them tick. They won’t let an idea fly without genuine insight, belief, or evidence. Do they care for the gratification of their ideas or awards? Maybe they care more about ‘the truth’ of what works.

On the other hand. Some marketers who care just enough to get the job done. They’ll propose what ‘seems’ to be working for other people. They might care more for avoiding work and avoiding blame than anything else.

However, both marketers will be equally dangerous, if they don’t care about the consumer.

Caring for the consumer on the big-idea level can mean Hyundai America allowing con­sumers to return any new Hyundai leased or financed in 2009 if the owner unexpectedly loses his/her income within the first year. But no, that’s not the full picture.

Marketers stuck on the big-idea level forget about the little things which matter most to the consumer. For example:

Remy the Marketer pays an agency to pay an interactive agency who pays an IT grad to ‘make a website’ to end up with a 20MB Flash game which requires the consumer to have alien broadband and a degree in aeronautics to meander. “WHOA USER ENGAGEMENT HOLLA!” Remy the marketer might holler. Do the users of the website holla back? No. They’re likely to close the site, and go to more ‘usable’ sites which get to the point.

And the big idea never got through.

This is just one example of how caring affects the last mile of a customer experience, especially when all your customers are online. It’s a ‘little detail’, true, but these are the things the customers you serve care about.

And this is a goldmine. When you care to understand, or research your customer, to get into their psyche, and let that translate to the actual person at the receiving end of the ‘communication plan’, good chance many of them may care enough to listen…

Speaking from experience, it’s the difference between a seeing a youth event with 300 youths versus attracting 30,000 youths to care enough to make it great.

AFTERTHOUGHT: THE AGE OF MEANING

Have you ever wondered why we leap out of a comfortable bed every morning? Why do we care so much about the jobs we’ve chosen? I’ve always believed that work gives people meaning, or, people can find meaning in the work they do. Or at least, happy people.

I wondered if the girl I’m about to grill feels this way about her previous job. Or maybe she didn’t, which is why she applied to Youth Asia. Maybe she can see a career opportunity with us as a doorway to her calling.

I sure hope so, because along the way, I’ve been blessed with working with passionate people who care. In and outside work, they care about their families, their hobbies, their curiosities, their causes. And it’s no surprise, the game changes when you work with people who care.

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So after this episode, what do I think about the new generation of marketers? Do many of them care about their work?

Firstly, considering we’re always on a lookout for talent, this episode will probably be on repeat. Secondly, yes, some people do care. We’ve hired 2 people in the past week, and have multiple openings ranging from market research, client service, to programming and web design to be filled.

And the girl, did I hire her? Turns out the girl who walked in was not a shortlisted interview candidate, but Joanne, my colleague, who cared enough to tell me that I would not be having anymore interviews for the day, and should go home to get more rest! :P