How can LG Change Teens Attitude toward Mean Texting - Assignment Example

How can LG Change Teens Attitude toward Mean Texting

Introduction

Since the invention of the mobile phone by Douglas Han in the year 1979, text messaging has revolutionised how people in the society communicates. Among the many features available in mobile phones such as checking emails, taking videos, making video calls, photographing etc., text messaging is the most popular feature among most mobile users in the world (Dyers, 2014). Advancement in technology, availability and easy access of information in the internet has led to the increased popularity of mobile phones. In addition, today, mobile phones have become cheap and teenagers can afford to acquire for themselves (Dyers, 2014). Moreover, the reduced cost of data plans has made it easier for mobile phone users to access and share information over the phone. This trend has had a negative impact on the attitude and behaviour of teenagers. Specifically, text messaging has become the most popular app in use among teenagers. Research evidence suggests that over 80 percent of teenagers who have mobile phones use the text messaging application more than any other application available in the mobile phone (Dyers, 2014). The frequent use and popularity of the text messaging application among the youth has raised serious concerns over the negative impacts of irresponsible texting among the teenage population. According to a survey conducted by the LG Company, over 60 percent of teenagers admit to have either sent or received an offensive message over the phone. This has raise serious concern over the use of mobile texting application among the youth.

LG Mobile Strategic Challenge

The LG Company in its mission to promote its brand and fulfilling its goal of making ‘life good’ made a critical investigation on the negative impacts of mean texting among teenagers. To stop irresponsible or mean texting among the teenage population, LG saw an opportunity to sell its brand and at the same time make a positive contribution toward ensuring responsible texting among the teenage population (Lee & Amirfar, 2016). To control the mean texting behaviour among teenagers it was more feasible to change the teenage attitude toward mean texting rather than implementing restrictive measures to curb the behaviour (Bardwell, 2013). In doing so, LG developed a strategic plan to shift the attitude of teenagers toward mean texting. Given the advancement in technology and continued easy access of the web services and the growing population of young people (teenagers), misuse of cell phone application will continue to escalate. Therefore, LG mobile, with its brand, ‘Life’s Good’ came up with a strategic challenge to develop ideas and solution on how the company will be involved in changing the teen’s attitude regarding mean texting. The strategic question was, “How could LG Mobile help in changing teen’s attitude about mean texting?” In answering the strategic question, the company developed two objectives which when achieved they would improve the LG brand relevance, perception, preference and consideration among both the teenage and adult audience and more importantly contribute toward responsible texting and increasing the brand equity and acceptance in the earned media.

The objectives to meet the strategic challenge were classified into two; benchmark based goal and performance achievements. In meeting the benchmark based objective, the company was to achieve attitudinal shift where teenager’s attitude toward mean texting and their perceptions was to be changed by a margin of more than 15 percent with reference to pre campaign status (Bramwell, 2013). Another objective of benchmarked based goal was to increase the relevance and consideration of the LG brand in all market sectors from the teens, youth and adults by a value of 10 percent with reference to pre campaign status.

In identifying other performance indicators as another objective to meet the strategic challenge, the company was to create an equity campaign where the brand value would be increased by portraying LG as a socially responsible organisation among the youth. The objective was to build a perception in the general population that the company cared and was committed toward upholding the good moral values of the society and was willingly ready to make positive contributions toward enhancing responsible social behaviour among teens in an increasing technologically challenging environment (Bramwell, 2013). In measuring the performance indicators for the company, the strategic challenge would ensure engagement of the teens with the LG brand where more teenagers will be motivated to interact with products of the company. In meeting the strategic challenge, the company will gained a wide media coverage with a reasonably lower media investment. This provided an opportunity for the company to achieve greater awareness of the negative implications of mean texting among teens while at the same time increasing the popularity of the LG mobile.

The big idea was that the company realised teens will never stop texting. It was a very important consideration in ensuring that company developed an idea that would be embraced by the target population (Lee, 2014). In this case, the company focussed on highlighting the personal consequences of mean texting. This strategy proved to be very effective in changing the teen’s attitude on mean texting. By realising the negative impacts of mean texting one would ‘ponder’ before clicking the send button of the test message. The ‘Give It a Ponder’ campaigned adopted by the company proved to be very effective in ensuring the responsible texting among the teens (Lee, 2014). The ‘ponder’ expression was a memorable and unique expression that was widely embraced by teens in over 170 nations across the globe. This was a very high impact which nearly represented teens across every corner of the world. This created an idea among the youth to make sober decisions when using their mobile phones (Lee & Amirfar, 2016). The campaign was also accompanied by expressions like ‘the decision is mine’ which gave teens the make up their minds and decide what is right and what is wrong. In addition the humorous nature of the ‘give it a ponder campaign’ featuring the beard –stroke ponder gesture created a widespread awareness of the LG campaign. Furthermore, given that the campaign was social media enabled, teens across the world would get real time updates and followed the ponder beard on all social media platforms including Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

From the results, it is evident that the campaign created a significant impact especially on teen’s attitude toward mean texting. The objective was achieved with a percentage ranging between 19 and 25 percent especially in thinking before texting aspect. Over 64 percent of the teens resolved not to share and generate mean texts. Success of an organisation is based on its ability to convert challenges into opportunities (Lee, 2014). By contributing towards changing the teen’s attitude toward mean texting, the brand relevance of the company to teens increased with over 50 % of them resolving to consider LG mobile when buying their next phone. This was evident from the fact that the LG mobile preference grew to match that of Apple after the ponder campaign. In addition, other performance indicators for the company increased after the campaign. ‘Give it a ponder campaign’ increased the brand equity among the teen population as socially responsible portraying LG as a caring organisation. After the campaign, LG was seen as the ‘cool’ brand among the teens which further increased its acceptance among the general population. The main objective of any business is to make profit. By identifying a change in the market and use of mobile phone product, the LG mobile developed a solution to a strategic challenge whose results increased its earned media coverage to $2MM from the initial $1.77MM.

Conclusion

The advancement in technology and access to information will increase in the next decades. The number of kids and teenagers with access to mobile phones is on the rise. It is therefore imperative to create an attitude of responsible texting behaviour among the teenage population in order to curb the personal consequences associated with mean texting. In doing so, we will build a moral responsible and upright society. Life will be not only being good but better. The LG mobile in its pondering campaign has significantly contributed toward responsible texting behaviour among the teenage population thus making an impact on the correct use of mobile phone applications.