Youth Culture influence(d) on/by advertising strategies

4 INTRODUCTION The aim of this dissertation is to investigate the connections between the language of advertising with its range of strategies and the cultural models of young people, here conceived as both a social community and a target group of consumers. It is my intention to first analyse which factors have contributed to shape this relationship, which is anthropological before than commercial. For this reason, I will focus on the “rise of youth”, that is, the moment when youngsters started being recognized as a social group with specific desires which could turn them into a potential target of specific advertising circuits. Consequently, I will deal with the main European subcultural phenomena, in order to stress the close relationship between youth culture and advertising strategies, as they have always influenced each other. I will return to this argument at the close of the dissertation. However, it is not my intention to enter the historical and sociological debate about whether advertising for the youth is a consequence of their emergence as a social group or the youth, as we conceive it today, is itself a product of the market’s appetite for new targets and new models to commodify. This dissertation is rather meant to explore the mechanisms of such a strong connection. Specifically, it aims to demonstrate the existence of strategies employed by advertising companies and aimed at young people in order to determine their main resources; this is argued to be the case, because, in opposition to the traditional expectations and beliefs, young people as a social group appear to be very hard to seduce and persuade. In fact, as asserted by J. O' Shaughnessy and N. J. O' Shaughnessy: Youth is probably the most difficult demographic group to interact with. Not only do they always pretend the best, they are also elusive in most products consumption, inconstant in brand preference, and simply challenging to engage and entertain. 1 For this reason, specific strategies are expected to rely on resources different from the traditional ones. 1 J. O' Shaughnessy, & N. J. O' Shaughnessy. Persuasion in advertising (New York: Routledge, 2004) 19.