Extract from
Brandrepublic.com by
David Tiltman Marketing 24-Jul-07, 08:30
LONDON - Far from being a generation apart from their predecessors, young consumers are using new technology to do what they have always done. The key for brands is to help them get more from their conversations.
For marketers the wrong side of 30, the past few years have been a steep learning curve. Social networks, user-generated content, web 2.0 - all sorts of technological newspeak has entered the marketing lexicon. Talk to some digital evangelists and you could be tempted to think that, thanks to technology, the UK's youth has changed unrecognisably from previous generations. But the results of a survey from MTV and Microsoft, revealed exclusively in Marketing, suggests that young Britons today are not so alien after all.
The study looked at the relationship between consumers aged 14 to 24 and technology. It interviewed 18,000 young people in 16 countries and found that globally, the UK's youngsters are some of the most immersed in technology, with TV, PCs and mobile phones all forming an important part of their lives.
Some headline findings underline the change technology has wrought. The average consumer in this age group claims to have 50 friends, of whom 16 are online friends they have never met; UK youngsters change their mobile phone handset more frequently than in any other developed market; and more young people in the UK use their PC or laptop to listen to music than their stereo - though interestingly, buying CDs still remains the most popular source of music.
Probe a little deeper, though, and a different picture emerges. When asked what they actually enjoyed doing, the top answers were listening to music, watching TV or DVDs, and hanging out with friends. Substitute videos for DVDs, and that's exactly what teenagers and young people have most enjoyed doing for decades. Interestingly, spending time online comes just ninth in the list. The conclusion is that technology itself is not interesting for teenagers; all it is doing is giving them an alternative method to do the things they already enjoyed doing.
This has interesting implications for marketers. According to VBS International Insight vice-president Andrew Davidson, who oversaw the research, teenagers' lack of interest in the technology means talking about it in brand communications is a mistake. 'Technology-led messages are one of the quickest ways to turn off young people,' he says. 'This is a point that is often misunderstood by marketers. They tend to forget what the users of technology actually want.'
Davidson argues that technology's biggest impact has been on sociability; specifically, the depth and range of friends young people have. Applications such as instant messaging, social networks and email mean that groups of friends can continue conversations when separated, and members of these groups influence each other on all sorts of issues.
MTV has already recognised the growing importance of these friendship groups in its marketing. A promotion around The Da Vinci Code film involved a pan-European giveaway of five cars. Rather than take the traditional route of having five separate winners, the competition gave all five cars to one person. The purpose was to give the winner the opportunity to reward his or her friends; the competition was the most popular movie promotion the network has ever run. 'Communications or promotion with this group must have relevance to their friends - that way they will talk about it with each other,' says Davidson. 'That is counter-intuitive to much youth marketing thinking that sees young people as individualistic and rebellious.'
Despite the rise in communications tools, face-to-face contact is still valued highly - 53% say they prefer to stay in touch this way. As a result, interest in these technologies peaks in the mid-teens, when there are still restrictions on what teenagers can get up to; once they are older, they still use technology, but can go out and spend time with their friends in the evening.
The research also sheds light on areas such as social networks and user-generated content. Social networks are widely used - 58% visit them weekly - but the main reason is to chat to existing friends. And as with areas such as instant messaging, interest wanes with age. User-generated content such as online video, on the other hand, is something many watch, but few take part in - less than 20% in any age group have uploaded content to sites such as YouTube. 'The mass market still wants to be entertained rather than be entertainers,' says Davidson.
If the key use for technology is conversation, the issue for brands is how to get talked about - for example, 59% of the survey agreed with the statement 'My friends and I talk about ads that we like'. Nick Emmel, planning director at Dare, which has worked on a version of MySpace for Vodafone, warns that brands must tread carefully. 'Rather than trying to take part directly in the conversation, brands should consider ways they can help young people communicate.'
Amid all this new technology, one of the best ways to be talked about is still to be on TV. Far from turning their backs on the medium, young people continue to watch it - 73% of young consumers have a set in their bedroom - and talk about it with their friends. For example, 51% say they use instant messenger to talk about films, music or TV. This also holds true for ads - 87% said the most recent ad they found memorable was on TV. '
What they are communicating about is often entertainment,' says Caroline Vogt, head of research at Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions. 'TV is still the platform to deliver content. The PC is where you go to talk about it.' For marketers, the trick to approaching young people is to recognise their desire to communicate and the key things they want to talk about. 'The challenge going forward,' concludes Vogt, 'is finding an approach that doesn't intrude on their conversation but adds to it.’
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