Letting people interact with your product

On seeing a particular car drive by us the other day, Mike mentioned how he really liked it because he used to drive it in a car racing game. And yet, car manufacturers were (at least at one point) against having their branded cars in such games because apparently they thought it would be bad for them if people could smash their cars up in games. Turns out maybe not - at least with Mike. This made me think about how we tend to remember a lot from our adolescence, like the music we listen to, the friendships we had, and clearly for some, the cars we drive in computer games. If people will attach positive emotional memories to things in adolescence, it makes sense that they're more likely to have some positive attachment to them in adulthood. Perhaps Mike would consider buying such a car at some point. Message for me: adolescents are a powerful bunch to target for future product appeal. At the moment I just have my songs, and I'm really just writing them to discover my own artistic voice at the moment, but who knows, maybe in the future I'll have a more general product that I'd like people to get on board with for the long haul - maybe then I'd look at how to get adolescents to interact with it, get familiar with it, and feel some sense of ownership of, even before they've bought it.