Tribal Marketing: How to Make Sure Your Business Reaches Its Target Audience

At some point, we began to blur the lines of which brands, products, and services should be consumed by whom. In another post, I’m going to talk in depth about the concept of a “tweenebe.” Tweenebes are adults who want to be tweens. Now, they may not truly want to be 12 again, but they are consuming a 12-year-old’s culture and loving it. Do you know those moms who love Justin Bieber? Are you one of them? Do you know dads who seem to enjoy rocking out to the Disney channel more than they should? It’s okay; they’re just enjoying the benefits of being a tween. I have to admit, in a society full of major economic, social, and political concerns, we’d all love to fawn over the latest tween singing sensation, read a Twilight book, or grab a Frappuccino with friends. Oh wait–don’t we already do those things?

As we look at these tribes, we have to ask ourselves: Do you have to be 13 to be a Preppy? Twenty something to be an Independent? No, you don’t. That seems like an easy question to answer, but it has stumped marketers for generations. Now, I doubt that you’ll see an ad for Tampax Pearl in Sports Illustrated or a Justin Bieber ad in AARP magazine, but you will see major brand extensions happening over the next few years. And I’m not talking about product development; I’m talking about market development. Marketers have to get outside of thinking in boxes, whether it’s ages 7 to 12, 13 to 19, or 20 to 24.

Technology has created so many generationally shared experiences. Facebook is no longer for elite college students. Indeed, the fastest growing demographic on Facebook is women over 50. How people think, feel, and react to brands is a completely new experience. Because of that, I’ve developed four tribes that I feel are universal. I think that these tribes definitely have subtribes (which I’ll explore in the future at some point), and I do believe that consumers can belong to more than one tribe. But the tribal migration is happening, and has been happening for years. As with any good disruptive innovation, technology has forced us to deal with this issue.

Ten years ago, if you wanted to launch a new product for teens, you’d probably launch a major ad campaign in a teen magazine like Seventeen. You would likely reach more than 10 million girls and call it a day. Fast-forward to 2011, where readership of Seventeen is now about 4 million. Where did all those readers go? They’re online, of course. They’re on thousands of web sites. How are you going to find them? Well, sure, you can just launch a campaign on a network of web sites and hope that you’re going to reach your entire target.

However, there’s an easier way. Targeting a tribe is also about understanding a mind-set. A tribe is defined as a “social division of people.” The key word here is social. Social involves so many things. What are people doing? How are they doing it? With whom are they doing it? How often? How long? When? Where? This is starting to sound like an invitation to the best party. That’s the mind-set a marketer should have when thinking about tribes, and that’s why tribal marketing works.

If you start to think about these consumers–Preppies, Techies, Alternatives, and Independents–as tribes, and then think about all of their social activities, you can easily figure out how to reach them. Then you won’t just be bowling in the dark. You will hit your mark every time.

Read more about tribal marketing in Tina Wells’s book, Chasing Youth Culture And Getting It Right (Wiley), in stores April 2011. You can also follow Tina on Twitter at @tinacwells. And be sure to check BlackEnterprise.com every Friday for her weekly small business posts.