10 Trends of the Real Time Generation/iGeneration

A few hours ago, the One Young World forum kicked off in London, organised/founded by my old boss and good mate David Jones, CEO of Havas and Euro RSCG Worldwide.  It’s a fantastic initiative, a kind of Davos for young people – bringing together over 1,000 under 25yr olds to work on solutions to some of the worlds biggest problems. Whilst perusing the one young world site I came across a great post from trend guru Marian Salzman whom I used to work with when I was a junior planner running around Sydney.  There’s alot of stuff she covers which relate closely to Gen C which I often write about. It also ties into an article about the iGeneration’s need for ‘instantaneous’ information  I posted recently. Here are her thoughts on some of the trends impacting 20 somethings globally sourced from a Global Youth Study she conducted in the lead up to OYW.  She also has a great post on the Real Time Generation.  There’s some good stuff here:

Herewith, are Marians top 10 trends of 20-somethings:

1. Real-time expectations

Virtually no one in his or her 20s in a developed country has known life without instant communication. Twenty-somethings connect with friends in real time — no waiting for snail mail or even e-mail. They get the latest news (whether world events or their friends’ status) as it happens, with a live feed of texts, tweets and Facebook updates from where it’s happening. Whenever they need information, it’s online in abundance. Reference books? What are those?

2. More intensely local lives

A paradox of borderless real-time technology is the way it reinforces local connections. With mobile devices, young adults make plans on the fly. With location-based apps on their phones, they find friends who happen to be nearby and get alerts from companies in the vicinity offering deals. Local is the new global, as I explained in my most recent post here, and nowhere is that more true than among 20-somethings.

3. Radical transparency

Twenty-somethings grew up with reality TV and radical celebrity culture — media poking into every corner of people’s lives, from Hollywood A-listers to Nadya Suleman, Tareq and Michaele Salahi, and Richard “Balloon Boy’s Dad” Heene. They’ve lived their whole lives in a culture of information “leaks” at the highest level, a world where even the great confess mistakes and show emotion to millions. They constantly use technologies that let them bare all — sometimes literally — to their friends. They’re aware that nothing online is confidential, but so what? This generation is more transparent about its thoughts, feelings and actions than any generation before it.

4. Expecting cheap or free everything

Globalization has made many essentials very cheap. Twenty-somethings can fill their stomachs and clothe themselves at unbelievably low cost. Budget air travel is normal. The Internet brings music, software, TV shows and all sorts of content for free. One of the biggest, most powerful brands on the planet, Google, offers a huge range of powerful services at no cost to the user.

5. Demanding entertainment

In some parts of the world, particularly the West, entertainment has long been an essential part of education. Young adults grew up with Sesame Street and edutainment based on fun, interactive graphics in the classroom and museums, an approach that has been endorsed by researchers. Even in places where more traditional education models prevail, fun and games have become a staple activity of young people. In the recent Global Youth Study, 59 percent of respondents said they regularly play video or computer games in their spare time; gaming is the second-most popular activity after socializing.

6. Worrying about the planet

Twenty-somethings came of age amid increasingly troubling reports about what’s going wrong with the planet. Inconvenient truths about climate change, disappearing species, habitat destruction and water shortages have been daily fare for them. In the survey, 64 percent of respondents saw climate change affecting them seriously, and 82 percent saw it affecting future generations seriously; 64 percent said only immediate radical changes can prevent the most serious impacts of climate change.

7. Seeing luxuries as standard

The basic tools of 20-something life are actually luxuries by historical standards. Whether they pay for them themselves or have help from their parents, most young adults in developed countries have:

⢠A smartphone costing well above $100, plus monthly fees
⢠A computer costing at least $300, with monthly broadband fees on top
⢠A wide-screen TV costing at least $300, plus cable or satellite fees
⢠Higher education as far as they can go

8. Pro-business, anti-multinational stance

Today’s 20-somethings don’t share the countercultural ideologies that fired up young baby boomers. They were raised in an environment in which free markets were revered and delivered plenty of consumer goodies. People in their 20s aren’t anti-business; some of them even founded megabrands (Google again). But they aren’t so fond of multinational corporations. In the survey, two-thirds of respondents said global corporations have too much power. But instead of trying to take down corporate giants by force like earlier generations did, now 20-somethings aspire to out-business them.

9. Regulate the heck out of media bias

Media in 2010 is vastly bigger than it was in 2000. Increasingly diverse news sources are available to anyone, anywhere, anytime. No wonder 70 percent of survey respondents get their news over the Internet. All this choice, plus growing educational levels and media savvy, makes 20-somethings acutely aware of media bias; 70 percent of respondents said all news media should be regulated so that they’re clearly independent of state and corporate bias.

10. Naturally Me but aspiring to We

Young adults are used to self-expression, self-esteem, personal computers, personal profiles, personalized settings and personal branding. Whether the culture is highly individualistic (e.g., the United States) or more collectivist (e.g., China), businesses have thrived by enabling people to express themselves, to be more Me. Culturally and commercially, 20-somethings have been encouraged to be more selfish than their predecessors. Yet they’re all too aware that everyone pursuing selfish interests creates planetary problems. Members of this generation are caught between the impulse to do their own thing and the desire to do the right thing together. Or as the pithy observation has it, “Everybody wants to save the earth; nobody wants to help Mom do the dishes.”

Me, We, The World – key youth development stages and implications for marketers

This is a short presentation I put together based on some primary research I’ve been doing into the different developmental stages youth go through and the implications for marketers.

These phases are by no means completely linear, they are intertwined and kids experience several at a time eg: they could be in the ‘play’ phase whilst also ‘achieving’ through sports etc. This is meant to give marketers a bit of an insight into the different mindsets of young people and also the key social differences between boys and girls. The social focus shifts from ‘Me’ to ‘We’ to ‘The World’ as kids move through to teenagers and their sphere of influence broadens.

I am NOT a psychologist, but this is my perspective based on work I’ve been doing  in the kids,tweens and teens space. Hopefully there are some interesting take outs for marketers who are looking to engage with young people through ideas.

Gen C preso

Gen C

Shuey and Mercedes go experimental

 

I love cars and I love Shuey. So I enjoyed watching this ‘very German’ bit of content for the Mercedes SLS AMG. It’s a tunnel experiment gone into production overdrive. A colleague of mine said it was the German semiotic dream, check out the forklift in German colours. Everything is white, clinical, precise, slightly cold. They’ve got a great interactive tour of the car, built entirely off a youtube channel which seems to be the way of the future for microsites featuring deep content.   I’ve never been a huge Mercedes fan, and certainly haven’t rated much of their recent comms, but this piece of content makes me like their brand a whole lot more. Go Shuey in 2010 !

Discrimination is good

I don’t mean that headline in a racist way.

What I mean by it, is that alot of youth brands fall into the trap of trying to ‘appeal’ to entire cross sections of youth. They try and appeal to everyone and in doing so often end up with vanilla brand strategies that go unnoticed. They don’t discriminate in terms of which youth tribes and communities they want to align with or connect.

I believe discrimination (in terms of picking a specific tribe to engage with) is a good thing when it comes to youth marketing. Brands today need to be more subversive and tightly define what it is they stand for. Sitting on the fence is a death sentence for your brand. You’ve got to create conversation around your brands  ideology and it’s about finding the true believers who will stand with you  through the good and the bad. Discriminating (by standing against something) allows you to create heat and friction around your brand, some talk value, whether that be playing with a tension, or just having a different POV on the world.  As adliterate once said, “it’s far more important to be interesting, than to be right”.

As a brand , you don’t want to try and be for everyone. The brands that do, end up standing for nothing and become disposable , quickly outflanked by challenger brands.

Discrimination requires you to firstly find something in culture worth changing, aligning your brand to that in a credible way that creates a new reality for people. Complete this sentence..

‘We are for the…..one’s”…  or “We’re for those that believe in…..”

If you can articulate who you’re for, and the verbs around that it  becomes easy for people to either believe in what you are doing, or not believe.  Although I panned it in a previous post, Diesel’s ‘Be Stupid’ campaign is a good example of a brand that is discriminating well. They are standing for something, a point of view on the world, you either believe in it or you don’t. But at least, they are creating conversation.

One of the first creative directors I ever worked with said to me: “Being polarising is a good thing…at least you’re standing for something worth talking about“. In todays hyper cluttered world, I believe those words are more relevant than ever. Find something worth changing in culture, work out what community you want standing beside you and how you can spark conversation within that community. It’s just as important to think about who/or what you’re against.

Augmented (Hyper) Reality gone nuts

 

Is this the future of Augmented Reality? Gees, I hope not… Great video created byKeiichi Matsuda on where augmented reality could go… a completely immersive life where the real and digital words are completely overlayed.  I like the use of space to manage all social connections and messages, but the in home usage freaks me out. A better life, or an overcrowded irritation?

Don’t be lame

I’m always getting asked what the Do’s and Dont’s are when it comes to engaging with todays youth. One of the first and most obvious things I always say is…’Don’t be lame’.  Now this probably sounds quite vague and generic, but when you think about it, it’s the most critical part of your engagement checklist.

Brands today trying to engage young people must understand that young people (in particular) have fiercely guarded ‘personal brands’ and identities that they spend years creating (both on and offline) and they just aren’t willing to associate with anything lame. Think about it, they spend hours each week on Facebook uploading pics of the parties they’ve been at, their holidays and life in general..it’s all about showing off online and earning status within their tribe. They are super quick to judge anything that’s lame, so basically ideas only get a short period to ‘sink or swim’..the incubation period for ideas to light up is now far shorter than a few years back. If they aren’t willing to socialise the idea on their own, your pretty much dead. Conversational currency is gold within their tribes.

 I overheard some 20yr olds talking the other at the train station and they were talking about a brand (I won’t name names) who they feel has become totally lame…”XXX has just become totally lame, as if i’d ever associate myself with them in any way..they just don’t get me”.   The ‘they just don’t get me’ is the critical thing here, most brands forget to do immerse themselves in youth culture, beyond the focus group room and really understand the heartbeat of youth culture at that point in time. Rarely are you going to get a culturally relevant insight or truth or understand a cultural code to break, from listening to some kids in a paid environment. You have to strap your backpack on and get amongst it. That’s what I always try and do and I’m constantly judging my work and the creatives I work with on the ‘Lame’ test.Capturing their imagination and creatign a new reality for them is a good place to start.

Nike Sportswear delivers ‘True City’ urban utility

Well, the crew over at Nike Sportswear and associated agencies have raised the bar when it comes to creating city living utility for youth through an innovative iphone app and supporting campaign.

 Nike Sportswear have just released ‘True City’, an iPhone app that provides peeps with an insiders view into 6 cool European cities. Nike’s behaving as they should, as an arbiter of urban cool..they’re not just talking the talk, they’re walking the walk, by partnering up with these diverse urbanistas who really do have a fresh view on these cities. True City delivers geo-tagged content, clever QR codes, a bit of a treasure hunt angle all updated in real time by real people. Will be interesting to see how it goes, but Nike definitely have delivered a truly social idea that provides European youth real cultural value.

Diesel goes counter culture and encourages youth to ‘Be Stupid’

Diesel global have just launched their ‘Be Stupid’ campaign which is a sort of manifesto against culture’s obsession with being ’smart’.

I applaud Diesel for trying something new, but I kind of feel this counter culture angle of rebelling against ’smart’ or culture’s view of what is accepted as smart just isn’t that interesting. I’m just not feeling it at all (and trust me, I want to) I think this idea devalues Diesel position as an aspirational lifestyle brand. I see there strategy as being  subversive and counter culture and trying to align a group of people to their brands viewpoint, but I just can’t figure out who would want to belong to an idea about ‘being stupid’.  This idea will propably have some traction with the Hipster and creative class youth tribes, but other than that, I think it may fall flat. The playfulness of the idea is ‘on brand’, but it just grates at me as being low rent for such a typically dynamic and intriguing brand.  I certainly don’t get the sophisticatel urban cool feel I’ve got from previous Diesel social media initiatives. They use examples of being ‘creative’ as metaphors for being stupid which just doesn’t really make sense in terms of sparking conversations in culture amongst global youth. Realistically, the majority of Diesel’s community want to be seen as savvy and in the know, not stupid.

The most interesting part of this idea is the  social component whereby people from around the world are given the  chance to be part of Diesel’s new music video by getting them to send in footage of themselves ‘being stupid’. They’ll also use this footage as part of Diesel’s 2010 clothing catalogue and link back to these kids personal networks, so there will be self promotion built in which will certainly appeal to 18-21yr olds need for their 15 seconds of fame’.

I might be totally wrong, but this idea isn’t that engaging, however the fact kids could be part of their new music video could save it from being an epic fail.

The iGeneration – where everything has to be instantaneous

Just read an interesting NY Times article titled ‘The Children of Cyberspace’. Some really interesting thoughts from Brad Stone. For me, the differentiation between the Net generation (those born in the 80’s) and now in their 20’s and the iGeneration (those born in’90 and the naughties) in how they use digital technology was quite interesting.

 At it’s most basic level, the Net Generation spend 2 hrs a day talking on the phone and using email as their main form on connection, however the iGeneration spend considerably more time texting than talking on the phone and communicates premoninantly on instant networks.

What is most interesting about the iGeneration is their expectation that everything happens INSTANTANEOUSLY…they’ve grown up on a media diet where they find out about events in real time, they can see photos of parties uploaded in real time, their lives are absolutely and completely on show….the result is that they are extremely impatient and are ‘always on’, seeking instant gratification from brands. Make me wait at your peril is a key message to marketers.

This represents quite a challenge for marketers, as our ideas have to more fluid and evolving than every before and involve the community in the outcome of the brands narrative. I believe we’ll see a massive growth in transmedia narratives for todays teens as they want to put their own spin on a brands story and want to see it evolve in real time, not watch a funny ad 5 times.