Biology, Physiology, Psychology, Sociology, Zoology, logy logy logy..  So what about Youthology? It gotta be the study of Youth, and so, China Youthology = The study of Youth in China.

The whole visit to Youthology are full of surprises, from the moment we stepped in until the end of the visit. Mr. Zafka surprises us with this little board written with “有朋自远方来不亦乐乎  欢迎新加坡国立大学的同学”。(Glad to welcome our friends from a distant place, welcome students from NUS )

The first activity of the visit was something really special, unexpected at the first place. We were told to write about 3things on the writing board:

1. What are the hot, cool, and popular things in Singapore?

2. What do you think about the Chinese youth?

3. What worry you the most?

Lisa, the founder and CEO of China Youthology gave us a brief and detail presentation about the company. The presentation basically touches on the business model, the company’s vision and strategies. It was an impressive presentation by Lisa which gave us a good overview and understanding of the operation of the company.

Youth, especially youth in China, why are they so important? Why are they so different from others? Why they need the special attention? I believe that the visit to Youthology had given us a new perspective towards this group of market. The unique property of the youth in China is that they are living in an economy that is growing in a tremendous pace and also coupled with both the Asian and Western cultures. Therefore, this group of people cannot be understood through the conventional methods. The marketing and branding managers in those MNCs are mostly in their 40s and 50s which have barely any knowledge about YOUTH. They presumed that by having ads with hip hop, cool music and stuff like that and the youth will LOVE it and will go crazy for their products. In fact, (quote from Lisa), they said that the ads are sucks! Well, I agree with that, with no objection, in fact lots of the ads that are targeted for youth in Malaysia or maybe Singapore are SUCKS too.

Youthology thinks that, conventional marketing methods are not practical in understanding the Chinese youth. We need a more holistic approach to understand the youth from the macro context, to the community context and lastly the individual context.

During the Q&A session, Lisa asked us to tell her more about the Youth in Singapore, which I personally think that is a session that helps us to understand ourself. A lot of questions that we’ve never think about have been asked and answered. To my surprise, to a certain extend, the youth in Singapore is somewhat similar to the youth in China, in certain aspects. We are hugely influence by the Western, Japanese and Koren cultures and similarly the Chinese youth are the same as well. We watch anime, staying late at night to catch up with the Korean series, crazy for the movie superstars and etc~~

One thing that impressed me the most is the team of Youthology, they are simply awesome and COOL. A group of young people with love and passion working in a COOL place doing something really COOL, wow where on earth you can find such a job!

Lastly, I feel that Youthology will make a huge impact to the business in China and have a huge potential to succeed. It lies largely on its unique business model that specifically target the GAP that is missing in the conventional marketing research for Youth. And YOUTH market, being one of the fastest growing consumer market with huge spending power, is definitely worth the attention.

To conclude this visit, I’ve learnt that, the best thing of life is to do a job that you love, so you don’t need to work for a single day. It was truly an eye-opening visit to Youthology and it was not only a business lesson but a philosophy lesson, at least for me.

Thanks!

WiNg SheNg

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