Marketing to Youth Pastors
One highlight from the Youth Specialties convention was the very present marketing to youth pastors. It seems that the marketing directed for said group assumes that they are ADD, ADHD, somewhat immature and possibly stuck in the 90′s or 80′s. I would love to submit examples, but they are just too prevalent and I could not force myself to copy them to this site. Suffice it to say, the design for most marketing was excessively busy, obnoxious and overbearing, and when it was placed side by side with others completely evaporated in the scheme of random gauche attempts at attention getting.
There were some that stood out though. Here is a great example of a booth that understood its purpose.
This is a great booth that values its purpose and communicates it simply. The mats and the color scheme are simple and draw the eye to the promotional materials and makes the average person ask, “what is XP3?” Here are the promotional materials:
All the promotions look like they go together, like someone had a plan that unified all their communications. Very cool! But better than that, simple enough to communicate one message about what they are.
Another great booth was the D6 booth. Notice any similarities? A letter and a number. What do they mean? You will have to ask to find out. In the markedly booths prevalent in the rest of the room, there was little simplicity and cleanliness in the message being communicated. There were mostly unclear, busy and mixed messages form other booths. Check out the D6 booth:
This booth went the extra mile. They brought in real wood backdrops and even their own flooring. The booth looks clean and displays a lot of material to tell you what they are about. This, like the other booth, begs you to as, “what is D6 and what do they do?” I did and the staff at the booth were very helpful.
Here is where something stood out about D6. They knew what they were about and could communicate it in two sentences. The booth looked great, but the staff were well prepared to help answer questions without a long, involved speech about what they are about.
What does this mean? Well the people marketing to youth pastors need to consider their audience and their message. They need to consider what youth pastors want and what they will put themselves through to try something new. Please check out both the featured booths for more of what they do.
