Recently, we at Instant Grass picked up on how the Youth are adopting new spins, on expired perceptions of their continent.
This months micro trend illustrates how we can bring relevance to something we would never naturally associate with urban Youth, african animals.
If you would like to learn more on these micro trends and how they are affecting young South Africans, please drop us an email at brad@instantgrass.com

South African marketers are rapidly catching up with their international counterparts in adopting word-of-mouth as an integral channel in their communications mix. While other media channels have shown around a 10% decline around the world, spend on Word-of-mouth in the US grew by 14.2% in 2008 to $1.54 billion.

Instant Grass pioneered the strategic use of Word-of-mouth in South Africa in 2005 with its Instant Seed channel, helping to establish Lipton Ice Tea in the South African market. Since then, it has managed long-term Seed campaigns for clients such as Puma, Savanna, Vawter, Clinique, J&J, Nestle and Kimberly Clark. Its real-time insights into the market allow Instant Grass to continually adapt its approach to the changing ways that consumers connect with each other and share opinions.

“Nowadays, there’s no difference between word-of-mouth and word-of-mouse,” says Anthea Poulos, Seed Strategist at Instant Grass. “The youth seamlessly integrate their online and offline conversations. However, the secret ingredient remains the same: being able to identify the most relevant and credible influencers and conversation spaces for a client’s brand, and stimulating natural brand advocacy amongst them.”

This is where IG’s network of grasses becomes invaluable, being able to identify the real opinion-leaders in each product category, rather than simply crowd-sourcing volunteers.

A recurring question In the current economic climate is the measurability of the effectiveness of word-of-mouth. “With the new digital tools that are now available, it`s becoming very easy to track conversations about your brand on-line,” says Poulos, “but ultimately our clients keep coming back for more because they see the difference in their sales figures.”

A number of other agencies are now following Instant Grass` lead, and the first conference dedicated to Word-of-mouth in South Africa is taking place in November in Johannesburg.

(For more information, please contact us, info@instantgrass.com.)

In this month’s edition of STREET GRASS, IG turns its attention towards 3 new developments “hot off the street” in the youth market.

To start off with, we shine a spotlight on the youth market’s unquenchable thirst for affordable indulgence (despite the economic climate). Secondly, IG takes a look at the re-emergence of SAfrikanism in a piece entitled “Afrocentric”, and thirdly, we deliver some surprises in the form of the townships latest up and coming music genre.

Affordable indulgence

Affrocentric

The rise of Rock ekasi