You know how after going on a shopping spree, you take the items out of the bag at home to show your roommate (or friend or mom) all your great finds? Well, teens these days do the same thing, but for thousands of people on YouTube. As Andrew posted about back in March, “haul” videos are one of the hottest current trends for mallrats with webcams.
Some smart fashion brands targeting teens, like M Booth client J.C. Penney, are now engaging top “haulers” by providing them with gift cards and free transportation and lodging to shop near JCP HQ in Texas. Leveraging a viral trend that already exists is a great way for brands to show they have their fingers on the pulse of their target consumers. Oh, and I’m totally making a haul video of my own after our next office sample sale.
PopSugar has released a study called “Why Y Women,” which explores the way that the women of Generation Y interact with media and respond to advertising. One of the study’s key findings is that the women of Gen Y (between the ages of 18 and 34) are skeptical of the advertising constantly being flung at us and seek out authentic sources of brand opinion in order to judge what material is (or is not) worth our attention.
As my daily Gmail inbox piles up with notices from my favorite online shopping haunts, news resources, cooking blogs and nightlife guides, I can relate to the feeling of being overwhelmed by the amount of information available to me…I’m sure we all can. What is interesting about Generation Y however, is what we consider a “reliable source” of information. How is Generation Y deciding what messages to take home with us at the end of the day?
PopSugar’s study found that while Gen X and Baby Boomers sought brand approval from so-called “experts,” Gen Y women report relying on our peers much more heavily when judging a brand’s authenticity. For the first time, however, this peer group not only includes “real-life” friends and co-workers, but also online friends, blog writers, and anonymous reviewers.
Personally, I find that my Twitter feed serves as a great medium through which to receive reviews and suggestions that come from what I consider to be “reliable sources.” My Twitter feed provides a one-stop location to glean daily updates on news, products and events via tweets from friends, as well as brands, news Web sites and blogs that I have chosen to follow (thereby indicating my faith in these outlets as valued sources of information) . This ability to sift through clutter and deliver “trusted” information is a quality that Twitter can really capitalize on as the world of Web 2.0 continues to expand indefinitely.
A new study suggests that only 22% of Millennials use Twitter. As a Millennial who does appreciate Twitter, I’d say that this is true, as most of the people I interact with on the microblogging site are older than me — the key demographic seems to be people in their late 20s and 30s.
I think this is because college students are so caught up in Facebook, and want to see what their friends who live down the hall are doing. However, once you enter the working world, you want your social network to expand beyond the people you already know from four years at college, and Twitter is a great place to connect with new contacts you might not have the chance to meet otherwise.
One more thing to note — take these survey results with a grain of salt, as the sample size of the study was only 200 consumers between the ages of 18-24.
Break out the piñata, Ford is starting a “Fiesta Movement.” The drowning auto maker is trying to build buzz around the launch of the 2010 Fiesta model by giving 100 of the cars away to Millennials who will be sent on “missions” to chronicle their adventures over social media platforms including Facebook, Flickr and YouTube.
Ford has set up a website, FiestaMovement.com, where people can upload a two- to-five-minute video explaining why they want to become one of the 100 lucky agents.
Although this is probably surprising to no one, a new study found that 18- to 24-year-olds watch online video more than they watch TV. From my personal experience, I can confirm that this is true for most people my age. My roommates and I very rarely watch live television — we either watch shows on DVR or on Hulu, or download them through iTunes. It feels incredibly limiting to watch whatever’s on TV just because it happens to be on, when we could watch whatever we want whenever we want online instead.
“ You never hear 20-year-olds talking about information overload because they understand the filters they’re given. You only hear, you know, 40- and 50-year-olds talking about it, 60-year-olds talking about it, because we grew up in the world of card catalogs and TV Guide. And now, all the filters we’re used to are broken and we’d like to blame it on the environment instead of admitting that we just don’t understand what’s going on.
Clay Shirky (via betaworks : Scott Heiferman)
“ Young people don’t want to rely on a Godlike figure from above to tell them what’s important. They want control over their media, instead of being controlled by it.
Rupert Murdoch, as quoted in The Long Tail
According to a new study, college women are more active on social networks than their male counterparts. In addition, college students are four times more likely to blog than all online adults, and college women are three times more likely to blog than their male counterparts. I’d say this data is not surprising at all.
Ahhhh, nostalgia. Is there anything more motivating? The creators of Once Upon a Win: A Visual Collection of Epic Wins from the Past, a nostalgia blog inviting submissions from the public, hope not. The site is sure to eat up hours of nostalgia lovers’ time and is a good example of what engages Gen Y-ers. I just hope they accept my Bo Jackson submission.
“ Young people (age 22 and under) are much noisier online than their elders. They account for about half of all the content and comments posted online.
MarketingVOX
It turns out the Internet isn’t such a bad place for teenagers to be wasting their time, according to a study by the MacArthur Foundation. The New York Times today published an article about the positive influence of new media upon teens. Lead researcher of the study Mizuko Ito said:
“Their [teens’] participation is giving them the technological skills and literacy they need to succeed in the contemporary world. They’re learning how to get along with others, how to manage a public identity, how to create a home page.”
They’re still mallrats, they just don’t need to use the payphone to have their mom pick them up; they can text her instead. I wish I had it that easy.
A Seinfeld-branded, bio-diesel-fueled bus is currently traveling to college campuses around the country on the “Seinfeld Campus Tour,” in an effort to gain exposure among the Millennial generation. As if we haven’t already been watching the reruns all our lives.
It’s prime time for the back-to-school advertising onslaught, as retailers shilling laptops, apparel and school supplies hone in on parents and their school-age children. And according to new data from Performics, including search marketing in the media mix is crucial to snagging the attention and influence of tweens, as they are increasingly using search to make product recommendations and find pricing info for their parents.
