Sex, the next generation, advertising and magazines
I woke up this morning thinking about sex.
It’s been selling magazines and fronting ad campaigns for decades (and is probably why you’re reading this blog.)
But if the recent ABCs are anything to go by, sex is no longer giving magazine readers the proverbial money shot. Sales of lads mags are going in one direction only – the new poster boys and girls are the sports heroes of 2012. We’ve gone from a nation that fetishises boobs to a generation that craves brain stimulation – young people want more, and they want to be fairly represented in the media. Less Katie Price, more Kate Tempest. Despite being banned in five countries, the recent Dazed cover with Azealia Banks faux smoking a condom (her idea) was a good move. It passed over the baton of power.
In an era where you can launch your own career online and bedroom content creation is the norm; mainstream magazines, sluggish and off-course, aren’t cutting it. Where Generation X waited to find out where the rave was, the new generation are putting on the rave in their own back yard. With brand sponsors.
No wonder ABCs are on the rise for youth run media (Live Magazine +24.4% to 42,558). Brand advertisers are increasingly realising the value of tangible engagement with an audience who want their voices heard.
As Live Magazine South Africa is seeing – these are young people caught up in the aftermath of heavy socio-changing, political and cultural decisions of the generation before them and are co-creating cutting edge content like never before (LiveMagSA ABC 48, 167). Their next cover will be sponsored by Google in a print V digital collision of epic proportions.
Despite this being a digital era, with print in decline globally, what we’re finding here in the UK is that if you get the message right – as Dazed proved – you can get your audience, and in some cases the world, to wake up and take notice. Print still packs a punch.
The youth voice is the new ‘sex sells’. This is the generation curating youth culture as I speak, they are architects of a new era.
So when that young person who once struggled to put down his PS3 ends up writing for a national or being a creative lead on a major advertising account – who’s to argue that brand advertising caused the riots – when their support of the rising youth-run media, helped inspire and promote that generation?
Now that’s sexy.
Author: Andrea Gamson, Advertising & Business Development Manager, Live Magazine
05.09.2012
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