Think You Know the Future of Internet Marketing?

By David Eedle |

Our telephone bill arrived the other day, and seemed a little high – like $300 more than the previous month. A quick dig through the itemised section soon identified the discrepancy – $380 of calls from our eldest daughter’s mobile phone. Clea turned 12 in May, and her main present was a new HipTop mobile telephone, her old flip phone having finally died the death a little while ago. When I bought the HipTop I carefully ensured she was on a flat rate data plan, because the key attraction of the Hip Top is its ease of use for SMS and MS Messenger, Clea’s number one and two forms of communication. Problem is, the crafty folk at Vodafone won’t let you also bundle it with a phone plan, so you are stuck on their basic one cent a second call plan. Whilst I probably did hear the sales person state this in the shop, I clearly was distracted and didn’t explain the ramifications to Clea. Something I have now clearly done!

The Phone Bill Culprit - a HipTop Slide

I was reminded of this little financial faux pas when an email came across my desk the other day with a copy of a research note produced by Morgan Stanley Research (PDF link) in London. It seems the note has achieved a pretty high circulation and level of attention usually not accorded these missives, which normally are written for consumption by their investment clients and other similar merchant banker types.

What makes this document different is that it wasn’t created by a besuited city spiv with a tie knot the width of the River Thames, a Porsche in the garage and a love of talking loudly on their mobile phone about the size of this year’s bonus. They wanted a research note about how digital media is transforming consumer behaviour and traditional media business models. And for once they turned to someone who actually would know – a 15 year old intern in their office named Matthew Robson. What makes Morgan Stanley really smart is they then published young Matthew’s findings.

While their habits will obviously change (especially whenthey start employment), understanding their mindset seems an excellent way of assessing how the media landscape will evolve. To this end, we asked a 15 year old summer work intern, Matthew Robson, to describe how he and his friends consume media. Without claiming representation or statistical accuracy, his piece provides one of the clearest and most thought provoking insights we have seen. So we published it

So just how do teenagers consume digital media? The answers are not entirely surprising:

Radio – forget it, except for some streaming radio that allows them to choose songs. Strike one for traditional media advertising
TV – they’ve all got one, it’s probably a flat screen, and they often follow a particular series, but hate ads so they switch channels or go do something else during the ads. Strike two for traditional media advertising.
Newspapers – don’t make them laugh. Strike three for traditional media advertising
Gaming – oh yeah, and for long periods often – an hour or more at a time. The unfortunately named Wii is top of the hit parade followed by XBox 360. (Explains why our children keep hassling to upgrade from our XBox to a Wii). And thanks to the Wii, lots of girls game too
Internet – they’ve all got it, and they all use it. Facebook is the biggie, they don’t bother with Twitter because nobody reads their Tweets. They don’t shop online because they can’t have credit cards
Telephone books. What the? Forget it. Why look in the Yellow Pages when you have Google
Online ads – hate em, popups etc are seen as “extremely annoying and pointless”. Strike one for digital advertising
Viral marketing (and outdoor marketing) = cool, as long as it’s humorous and interesting
Music – lots and lots and lots, everywhere, all the time, on iPods (if your Mum and Dad are rich); or mobile phone (if your Mum and Dad are not). Paying for the music is a last resort.
Cinema – it’s regular, but not much to do with the actual film, it’s the social opportunity. In the UK this drops markedly when the teens turn 15 because then they have to pay adult price
Mobile phones. They all have one (well, 99% do, which if you allow for the usual margin of error probably means 100% give or take a percent point). They go for mid-range phones – too traumatic if an expensive one is nicked, but they want a good feature set. They’re on pre-paid because they either can’t afford monthly payments or can’t commit to a contract.

Like our daughter the British teens in the report are major users of SMS. They don’t bother with video calling or internet because of cost, unless there’s WiFi available. Interestingly they are big users of Bluetooth – to swap all those illegally acquired music tracks plus pictures of their friends. Also like our daughter they are not big users of email on their phones, as the report says:

Mobile email is not used as teenagers have no need; they do not need to be connected to their inbox all the time as they don’t receive important emails.

Finally the report concludes with:

What is Hot?
•Anything with a touch screen is desirable.
•Mobile phones with large capacities for music.
•Portable devices that can connect to the internet (iPhones)
•Really big tellies
What Is Not?
•Anything with wires
•Phones with black and white screens
•Clunky ‘brick’ phones
•Devices with less than ten-hour battery life

Why’s all this of interest? If you own a teenager (or a teenager in training like us) you probably already had divined most of this intelligence, if you’re able to elicit more than a guttural grunt from your child of course. It’s of interest because I think it confirms what most people know: the traditional advertising industry will be dead in ten years time. By then my daughter will be 22, and the teenagers in the research note will be in their mid-twenties and preparing to take over the world. They don’t consume radio, TV, print or online advertising now and I suspect they won’t in the future.

What those of us in publishing, media and internet services need to do is start thinking about how we’re going to engage this audience of tomorrow. Because they’re actually the audience of today, they consume internet media, just not the paid stuff. If you’re looking at internet marketing strategies for the future, then this is your audience. And what they do and think will affect blog marketing and website marketing for the next ten years.

Think you know where internet marketing is headed? If you use a traditional marketing mix, then you’re going to need to start again. Stop buying ads and start thinking viral. Stop thinking because you’re using Facebook to promote your blog, or to assist your blog search results on Google, that you’re at the leading edge. You ain’t.

These kids have already done Facebook, Twitter and MySpace (mostly the former, a little of the second and probably moving on from the latter). Indeed, although the Morgan Stanley note suggested Facebook was most popular, that’s probably already changing. A report on MediaPost.com in March this year says Facebook users are ageing:

The number of U.S. users over 35 has doubled in just the last 60 days, according to new data from Inside Facebook. The burgeoning crowd of older users means that the majority of Facebook members are now over age 25. Those ages 18 to 25 still make up the biggest proportion of users, at 35%. But people ages 26-44 now account for 41% of the Facebook audience. Women over 55 remain the fastest-growing demographic in the last three months, hitting 1.5 million.

And where ‘old people’ congregate (by which I mean anyone older than 17), teens are likely to jump ship. Who wants to swap Facebook messages with your mother?

Think I’m exaggerating about global domination? I’ve been watching the American TV channel NBC and its Day in the Life at the White House program, a documentary aired a few weeks ago where they film the US President and his staff during a typical day at the White House in Washington. Two things strike you – the simply frantic pace everything happens, and how YOUNG they all are – almost all of the people working in the West Wing are under 30 – a point made in the program. President Obama’s secretary is 28. The West Wing receptionist is 27. The right hand man to David Axelrod, one of Obama’s most trusted senior advisors, is 24 years old. They live on a diet of no sleep, apples and M&M chocolates (albeit special White House edition boxed M&Ms). Generation Y isn’t threatening to take over the world. They’re running it right now from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington. With this current crop of teens, the cohort I keep calling Generation Z for want of a more official term, hard on their heels.

Niche Content Millionaire is a downloadable eBook that tells you the true story how we made millions from subscription content and membership websites.

Buy Niche Content Millionaire Now